Lesser Evils
by mirari1
Summary: When a human warlock is blackmailed into helping hunt for a missing settlement of Third War refugees, a chance meeting throws the searchers into the midst of a Legion plot. Can new loyalties survive contact with the old?
1. Prologue

A/N: This is technically a sequel to "Hell for the Company," but I don't think you necessarily need to read that fic to enjoy this one. Most of what's been carried over are characters (at least in the beginning few chapters), and I think the relationships between them should be pretty easy to get from context. A short note on setting: it didn't matter so much before, since most of the action took place outside of Azeroth, but the timing of this is after the opening of the Dark Portal during Burning Crusade, and not too long before Kil'jaeden gets his head stuck in the Sunwell. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

She'd expected the fire in the hayloft overhead, but when the iron plowshare beneath her hand burst angrily into flame, Callista was surprised.

She snatched her fingers away and swore, ducking back behind the pile of rusted farm implements as the hot metal smell mingled with the dry smoke already in the air. Green flecked the pupils of her eyes as she flung her magic out like a sensitive web over her surroundings, searching.

Imps – there'd only been one when she'd entered the barn, but evidently the little fiend had managed a summoning circle.

A sharp cackle sounded overhead as the imp capered at the edge of the loft, kicking the ladder over with its cloven-hoofed foot and shrieking with glee as it crashed against the grey wood of the barn wall, showering Callista with splinters and forcing her to flinch out of the path of its fall. It clattered to the ground not far from where she'd been crouched, sending chipped shovels and broken wheelbarrows skittering across the earthen floor.

She hissed a spell and the imp's shriek rose an octave as an iridescent rope of shadow annihilated the planks beneath its hooves and snapped around its mangy-furred chest. It struggled futilely as it plummeted through the smoke and dust-choked air and thudded to the ground, yelling curses in its pidgin demonic dialect. Callista thumbed one of the crystal spheres in the pouch at her side automatically, feeling the runes etched into its surface. So much for that one…

The fireball that blistered the air as it rocketed past her head would've left her neck a sizzling ruin had it struck true, but imps were notoriously lousy shots. Besides, she'd sensed the prickle of demonic magic and ducked.

Unbeknownst to the imp, her felhunter had smelled it, too. Jhormug may have been too clumsy to scale the ladder to the hayloft, but he was plenty massive enough to crash through the barn wall in a hail of splintered wood, sending the remaining demon squealing from cover. It scrabbled across the floor on all fours before righting itself and loosing a bright gout of flame back over its shoulder at the felhunter.

Jhormug never paused in his headlong lunge, fire scattering from his magic-proofed hide like water droplets as he bounded through smoke and falling splinters and twisted his head to clamp his huge jaws around the imp's squirming form. He could've crushed it effortlessly between his teeth, but instead the twin tentacles that rose from his shoulders struck down to latch against the imp's chest, a green glow rising around them as the imp twisted and yelped.

The smoke in the barn was so thick now that Callista's eyes watered and every second breath was a cough. Luckily the hayloft hadn't been full – this was an old barn, used only to store extra farm equipment – or she'd already have been roasted. She pulled the collar of her robe up over her mouth and nose as she squinted through the haze, feeling the heat of the fire smoldering in the loft sear the skin of her face as she hurried to where the first imp had fallen and picked it up by the scruff of its hairy neck. It struggled, but only weakly, and she was careful to avoid the corrosive skeins of shadow that still bound it as she stumbled out the open doors of the barn and into the bright summer sun.

White smoke billowed out after her, and she flung the imp to the ground a prudent distance from the building conflagration, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. Jhormug padded obediently at her heels, dropping the limp form of the imp he carried at her feet and licking blood from the coarse fur beneath his jaw.

She really hated it when people let fiends entrench themselves in their outbuildings that way. Some misguided hope that if they ignored them they might go away, she supposed. If it didn't work for kitchen mice, she had no idea why anyone would assume it would work for the Legion.

Tears still streaming from her eyes, Callista dug two of the rune-etched crystal balls from her pouch and cupped them in her palm. Magic flared poisonous green, tendrils writhing from the twin spheres to twine around the two imps lying prone at her feet. They shrieked and squirmed as their eyes blazed brightly and they seemed to _dissolve_, melding into streamers of emerald light that shrank rapidly back into the crystal spheres in Callista's hand. No longer empty, a glowing fog of fel magic filled them, a tiny imp-shaped silhouette just visible at the heart of each one. Callista held one up to the sun and peered inside before pocketing both, satisfied. Two days ago she'd caught the felhound that had been terrorizing some anemic-looking noble's hunting lodge. Not bad, for one foray into Elwynn.

Jhormug suddenly growled low in his throat and swung his eyeless head around to stare up the path to the main house. Muscles bunched beneath his scaled hide, and Callista could feel her minion's consternation at not being allowed to devour the imp translating into a murderous urge to rip apart whoever was coming to join them. That was no good. And besides, it was part of the unspoken contract of these things that she pretend not to be a warlock, anyway.

Jerking hard on their bond, she dismissed the felhunter back to the Nether with a flick of her wrist and a short burst of felfire. Maybe she'd let it eat a bandit or two on the way home.

The roof of the barn behind her collapsed with a crash and a swirl of red sparks, and she flinched. The owner wouldn't be pleased, but if that imp had really cast a summoning circle up there it was probably for the best. Less work than purging it, anyway.

Two figures slowly resolved themselves through the tatters of smoke strewn over the path by the breeze, and she strode forward to meet them. One was portly and red-faced, clad in an abundance of green silks and gold jewelry, and the other was a bent-backed old manservant who eyed Callista warily as they approached.

"Ah, Miss Dunhaven!" the portly man said once they'd reached a civilized distance, drawing an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket to mop his glistening forehead. His brows rose as his gaze fell on the smoking charcoal heap that had once been the barn, and Callista wrinkled her nose in something like apology. "I trust those are the fires of success my barn is currently smoldering in?"

"The smoke of victory stings our eyes even now, Lord Duncan," she said, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm from her tone as she rubbed at the tears that still insisted on streaming down her cheeks. "Where those demons are going, they won't be coming back."

"Excellent, excellent," he said, beaming and clapping his ring-studded hands together. "The Light embraces all of us in the end, though what it plans to do with those mangy little ankle-blisterers is quite beyond me, I must admit." His pudgy brow crinkled, and he rubbed absently at his left buttock as though remembering an old injury. "Something hideous, I hope."

Callista had finally succeeded in clearing the last of the smoke and sawdust from her eyes, but the ash stuck to the tracks of her tears itched fiercely. "Can the Light _do_ hideous?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Dashed if I know," Lord Duncan said. "Mollins?"

The manservant, evidently used to being addressed at such unconventional times, didn't even blink his wrinkle-framed eyes. "_You_ were the paladin, sir."

"Quite right, quite right." He nodded sagely, causing the silk of his collar to rustle in agreement. "Awful business, that, a nice young girl like yourself has done well to stay out of it. Enormous orcs with enormous swords, and do you know, I think they actually meant to stick me with them? All rusty and filthy, who knows where they'd been."

"Inside the man in front of you, I believe sir," Mollins said.

Lord Duncan clucked his tongue scoldingly. "Dreadful thing to say in front of a young lady, Mollins. Look, you can see her ears burning from here."

Callista had decided some time ago that no one as fantastically successful as Lord Duncan was could possibly be as fantastically stupid as he tried to pretend to be, so the façade had to be part of some ironic game he played for his own amusement. At any rate, he was one of her few "employers" that she really liked, so she usually indulged him in it. She glanced upward, and was only mildly surprised to see the grey wisps of soot floating around her head. "Just the smoke of victory again, Lord Duncan. That's why it smells like burnt hayloft."

"Ah, wonderful then," Lord Duncan said, clapping his chubby hands together once more.

Mollins cleared his throat pointedly, shifting the hand he held wrapped around the strings of a silken pouch so the coins inside jingled.

"Yes, yes, quite right as always, Mollins, business to attend to," Lord Duncan said. He made an expansive gesture in the direction of the pouch in his manservant's hand, green silks flashing in the sunlight. "Your payment, my dear, and well-earned indeed if success is proportional to property damage. Half now, and half in a fortnight if the little devils remain banished, as we agreed."

Mollins stepped forward (clearly unconvinced by the mage garb she wore) and placed the pouch gingerly into Callista's hand, as though afraid she might sear off his fingers at a touch.

Startled by the weight of the bag – there must have been half again what she'd asked for in there – Callista narrowly avoided dropping it, to the large man's chortle.

"A pleasure as always, Lord Duncan," she said, raising a brow at him.

"So it has been, so it has been," he said with his widest and most delighted smile. "Rest assured that if this contract expires to my satisfaction you'll receive references to all my considerable number of friends. Dratted demons seem to be everywhere these days. Safe travels, my dear!"

She bowed politely to him, which he acknowledged with a nod before the two parties split. Callista climbed the grassy hill to find the tree where she'd tethered her horse, while Lord Duncan and his manservant turned back down the packed-earth path to the house.

When Callista was out of sight around a bend, Mollins turned to his master with his acetic features drawn into a frown. "That woman is a warlock, sir."

"Of course she is, Mollins," Lord Duncan replied. The teeth in his pleased smile flashed almost as brightly as the diamonds at his throat. "Lovely girl, she's the only one who really gets rid of them, you know."

Mollin's frown creased his face into wrinkled canyons. "But…sir…she _hasn't _got rid of them. She's keeping them in her _pockets_."

Lord Duncan waved his hand in a gracefully dismissive gesture. "Yes, yes, I'm well aware of that, Mollins. I was a damned good paladin in my day, you know. Elegant solution she's found, in my opinion. I wonder what she does with them all."

"Breeding a murderous demonic army, no doubt," Mollins muttered.

Lord Duncan's fleshy brow rose. "A murderous demonic army of ankle-biting imps? Dreadful thought. I suppose we'd have to invest, wouldn't we, Mollins?"

"As you say, sir."

* * *

Callista scrubbed at her face with the rune-embroidered sleeve of her robes, but only succeeded in smearing the ash more evenly across it. "Ugh," she said to no one in particular. Her mouth tasted like singed hay, so she pulled the water skin from her saddlebag and took a grateful swig to clear it.

A healthy pouch of gold and two more imprisoned demons wasn't bad at all for a day's trouble. Callista tossed the pouch into the saddlebag with the waterskin and removed the two green-fogged crystal spheres from her pocket, sliding them into a sturdy leather bag already a quarter full of such objects. The mare's silky white ears lay flat against her head as Callista fiddled with her supplies, but at least she didn't kick this time.

She unhitched the mare from the apple tree (automatically dodging the snap of the animal's large flat teeth) and swung herself up into the saddle, squeezing her knees to urge her forward. Lord Duncan's lands were near enough to Stormwind City that she could probably ride home before nightfall, but she thought it might be better to take a room in Goldshire and wait for the taint of demonic magic to fade from her before entering the capital. Dabbling in fel magic wasn't illegal – _quite_ – in Alliance lands, but it was the sort of thing you didn't want to advertise in public lest "accidents" happen to you. Especially now.

Leaves played dappled shadows on the dirt path as Callista rode through Lord Duncan's prosperous farmland in the direction of the main road. She'd never seen the people of Stormwind so skittish, she reflected, not even when that enormous doomlord wrenched open the Dark Portal. Not that they didn't have good reason to be. Demons, disappearances… Before she'd been...away...during her ill-fated attempt at dreadsteed summoning, it had been rare to see so much as an imp any nearer to Stormwind than Deadwind Pass, but now demons were appearing with alarming frequency within the holdings of the capital itself. They had no particular purpose that she could tell, and that disturbed her – if no one was summoning them intentionally, then they were slipping through in the wake of something else. And even Callista, who was better positioned for word on Legion scheming than most in Stormwind, had heard no mutterings of that.

The oak-lined path opened up ahead as it merged with the road to Goldshire, dust hanging over it in a low golden shroud. She waited for a messenger clad in the livery of the Stormwind Guard to gallop past before urging her steed onto it in a lazy trot. Troubled times these may have been, but at least they were making her rich. Nobles would pay handsomely to rid their estates of alarming demonic trespassers, and the goblin Trade Coalition would pay even more handsomely for the imprisoned demons themselves. Silvermoon City, she knew, was starved for magic in all its forms. Another month or so of this, and Callista would never have to worry about gold again for the rest of her life. It was an enjoyable thought.

Birds chirped cheerfully in the branches that overhung the road, and wildflowers poked their colorful heads from the shade beneath the forest eaves. Even the white mare (bred, Callista suspected, for paladins, no matter what that gap-toothed horse trader had sworn to her) seemed less ill-tempered than usual. At this pace, it would take two hours or more to reach the Lion's Pride Inn, but that was alright. There was plenty of time until nightfall, and she was willing to enjoy the ride.


	2. Unpleasant Meetings

It was two days before Callista guided her horse, more brown than white now with the dirt of traveling, up the granite cobbles between the crowded gates of Stormwind. The towering statues of old heroes cast little shade in the noonday sun, and the dust kicked up by dozens of hooves and wagon wheels clung to the sweat that beaded her neck. She'd intended for her first act upon reaching home to involve a long warm bath, but a cold flagon and a plate of bread and cheese at the local tavern was sounding more and more appealing. Besides, she'd been away from the capital for more than a week, and the kind of news that interested her was hard to find in the countryside.

Waving goodbye to the plump merchant seated on the gaudy carriage to her right (the road from Goldshire was quite safe, but merchants were still pleased to travel with friendly mages – or those they believed to be – just in case), she turned her horse off the main road and on to one of the side streets that led to the Mage Quarter.

This lane was only slightly less packed, thick with merchants and their customers, messenger boys (and pickpockets pretending to be messenger boys, no doubt) dashing through the press. The white mare snorted and snapped at a black gelding passing the other way, and Callista yanked warningly on the bit. Sometimes she thought the creature was only barely less mad than her felsteed, but at least it was less likely to get her lynched.

Her mount calmed somewhat as they left the crowded streets of commerce near the city center and moved deeper into the Mage Quarter. Here, the noisy peddlers of fruit and fish were replaced by more sedate shops selling magical artifacts and tomes. Soldiers wearing the tabards of various Alliance organizations (the Stormwind Guard, the Argent Dawn, even a nondescript-looking woman she imagined was SI:7) called out recruitment pitches for missions requiring arcane talent. Callista ignored them, having a healthy dislike for mercenary work. The coin was almost never worth the level of risk involved, and any arcanist of even middling talent could do far better at something else.

She dug a knee into her mare's side, directing it down a twisting alleyway that somehow managed to seem darker than the main thoroughfare, though that was probably just a trick of the narrow street and the high buildings that flanked it. A battered sign bearing the name "The Slaughtered Lamb" hung over a shadowy doorway halfway down the alley.

Callista swung herself out of the saddle in front of the sign, tying her horse up to a free hitching post and giving the well a few pumps to fill the trough before it. The mare eyed her balefully and switched her tail, clearly unhappy with the local atmosphere, but after a moment condescended to drink.

Callista narrowed her eyes at the animal – she wasn't about to be judged by some walnut-brained fiend of a horse, even if that trader _had_ lied – before pushing the door open and stepping into the pub.

The inside was dark and mostly empty, smelling faintly of spilled beer and faded enchantments. This wasn't unusual – most places frequented by students of magic tended to smell that way.

She took a seat at one of the cracked leather stools at the bar and placed her order with the dour-faced bartender, half-turning to survey her fellow customers. There weren't very many this early in the day, but two women sat at a round table in the back corner, one of whom waved her over upon noticing her gaze.

Recognizing both, Callista hesitated ambivalently a moment before deciding there was no dignified way to escape and sliding off the stool, giving a brief half-wave in acknowledgement. Madame Fairchild, the woman who'd beckoned, sat in her chair in a straight-backed, somewhat professorial way, grey robes falling in stiff lines around her. The other woman, Lady Devereux, had golden hair and eyes the startling blue of a habitual arcane user (though Callista would've bet her last soul shard the only magic she'd done lately was the illusion that kept them that color) and would have turned heads at any royal function.

Lady Devereux's lip curled delicately as Callista approached, eyes lingering pointedly on the dirt that streaked her face and clothes. Deciding she was glad she'd come over after all, Callista pulled out the chair nearest her on wicked impulse, settling herself in it rather more heavily than was necessary and causing a puff of dust to rise from her traveling cloak.

The woman's look of disgust became more pronounced as she waved the dust away with a manicured hand. "Are you certain the Academy expelled you for your demons and not your manners?"

"No," Callista said, weighing the amusement value of pointing out there was hay stuck to her eyelashes against that of letting her discover it for herself.

Madame Fairchild ignored this exchange of hostilities, fixing sharp black eyes on Callista's face. "Daeron Miller is missing," she said abruptly.

Callista cocked her head and wrinkled her nose, somewhat startled by the shift in topic and not sure what she was meant to make of it. She knew Daeron, vaguely, but he was certainly no friend, and it wasn't as though it was strange for warlocks to vanish periodically. She'd done it herself not too long ago. "Is that why you called me over here?" she asked, hoping this conversation wouldn't actually be as dull as she now suspected. "His wife probably caught him with that succubus and chained him to the hearth."

Lady Devereux sniffed prettily, and there was a brief pause as a barmaid arrived with Callista's bread and cheese and a flagon of beer.

"Then why is she running about town wailing and offering gold for a search party?" Lady Devereux said once the barmaid was out of earshot, pretending to examine her pristine nails for flaws.

Callista, who knew Talia Miller about as well as she did her husband, resisted the urge to scoff. She thought the woman seemed far too practical to go wailing about anywhere, but she got the point. Not that that made Daeron's possible fate any more interesting. "Maybe the succubus caught him with his wife and chained him to the summoning circle."

Lady Devereux tossed her head so her hair shone, reminding Callista strongly of her own succubus. "Slightly more likely," she said with a deceptively lovely smile. The woman claimed to have High Elven blood in her family, and had the fine-featured good looks to prove it, but if it was true then the elvish talent for magic had completely passed her over. Not that that made her stupid – she'd married a very influential lord (who almost certainly had no idea where his wife was at this moment) and was perpetually up to her not-quite-pointy ears in Alliance politics. Callista intensely disliked her; practitioners of demonic magic walked a knife's edge of legality, and the woman's position made her nervous.

"Is there a point to this?" Callista asked, narrowing her eyes and slicing a piece of cheese from the block with a sharp motion.

"Yes," Madame Fairchild said. She folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her, shooting the golden-haired woman beside her an unreadable look. "Our colleagues are disappearing, we don't know why, and it's no longer only the ones we'd expect."

Callista raised a brow, still not convinced this was worth her and Lady Devereux suffering each other's company, but slightly more interested. Not just traitors and fools whose own demons murdered them, then. "What makes you think Daeron didn't defect?"

Madame Fairchild shook her grey-streaked head. "He may have been indifferent to his wife's charms, but by all accounts he loved his daughter. I don't think you'll find him in the…usual…places."

The usual places being Jaedenar or one of the other Burning Legion outposts on Azeroth. It was amazing how many "vanished" warlocks turned up there eventually, especially with the war going poorly in Outland.

Callista tore off a chunk of bread and swallowed it. "Then what sort of places do you think you'd – "

She didn't bother finishing her question as her gaze lit on Lady Devereux's face, which was currently arranged in an even more intense expression of scorn than usual. "Oh, Twisting Nether," she said instead, half in amusement and half in irritation. "What sort of conspiracy is it now?"

"An imaginary one," Lady Devereux said. "As I've already explained to our dear Madame Fairchild, you're far too valuable now. Who else would deal with all these wretched demons?"

"Unless someone's looking for someone to blame for them," Madame Fairchild said, drumming her fingernails on the tabletop in a measured pattern.

Lady Devereux's eyes flicked to her scornfully. "They aren't."

"Then where's Daeron?" Callista put in, perverse dislike of the golden-haired woman momentarily overriding her conviction that Madame Fairchild was insane.

The Lady's rosy lips curved delightedly, putting Callista in mind of one of the crocolisks that occasionally surfaced in the city canals, albeit a very beautiful one. "I'm sure _I_ don't know. Where were you when _you_ vanished for weeks?"

Madame Fairchild leaned forward slightly over her folded hands, and Callista suspected they'd hit on the real reason she'd been summoned into this little discussion. Annoyance at being suckered into an interrogation when she'd been looking for gossip, coupled with the unpleasantness of being filthy and travel-sore, bred in her a vicious irritation. If they thought they were about to hear anything useful they would be sadly disappointed. Callista had been posed this question countless times since her return from Booty Bay, and she alternated between answering with a plausible lie and the most lurid thing she could think of. There was no doubt in her mind which one this situation warranted.

She swept her eyes over the room as though checking for eavesdroppers, leaning forward seriously. "Argus," she said in a breathy whisper. "I joined the Shadow Council, married an orc, and swore our pasty-skinned babies to the Legion lords."

There was a brief moment of silence in the wake of her pronouncement, broken by Madame Fairchild's unimpressed snort.

They didn't believe her, obviously, because the story was ridiculous, and in hindsight Callista regretted making up something so immediately dismissible. It was much more satisfying to imagine them stewing after she'd left. Struck by a sudden burst of diabolical inspiration, she stood up and pushed her chair back, tossing a handful of coppers onto the table and scooping up what was left of her bread and cheese. "Two of those things are lies, of course," she said, lingering just long enough to see Madame Fairchild's brow crease with confusion before turning and stepping from the bar.

Satisfied that the two women would shortly be just as cranky as she was trying to figure out what in the Nether she was talking about, she pocketed the hunk of break and held the cheese between her teeth, untethering her horse and swatting absently at its nose when it tried to bite her. Warlocks weren't all paranoid, power-grubbing harpies, but they did tend to lie more in that direction than the population at large. If her friend Tun had been here, she suspected he would've told her to walk away in the first place from a conversation she knew would be both useless and unpleasant, and she also suspected the idea might have some merit. If only the thought of skulking away from those two witches like a kicked dog didn't make her teeth grind.

Hoisting herself back into her saddle, she swallowed the last bit of cheese as her mare trotted out of the alleyway and into the full sunlight of the main street. Lunch hadn't been as pleasant as she'd hoped, but at least she could get herself cleaned up now on a full stomach. She let the mare choose her own pace as they picked their way around the foot traffic, making for the yellow-thatched roof of the local stables.

A flock of children tumbled out of a shop ahead of her, all clad in identical blue cloaks and clutching books of spells as they giggled and shrieked at one another, and she drew rein to let them cross. They were clearly students of the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences at the end of the street, which put her in mind of Tun again. She hoped the gnome remembered their dinner plans for tonight. Otherwise she'd have to go up into the Wizard's Sanctum to drag him out, and even though it had been years since any of the professors there could set her to diagramming spells, she still had to fight an ingrained urge to cringe guiltily whenever some bearded old archmage scowled at her. And they _did_ scowl – those who remembered the circumstances of her expulsion, anyway.

She walked her mare up to the front of the stables and dismounted, handing the reins to a freckled stable boy who ran up to greet her. Unbuckling her saddlebags and slinging them across her shoulder, she began the short walk home, squinting as she moved out of the shade and into the bright sunlight.

The day was hot, but a breeze, sea-scented from the port that was Stormwind City's heart, ruffled the pennants that hung from the Academy's ivy-wreathed towers. Callista's house was in a decent part of town, populated mostly by mages and near to the stables, but the hair that had escaped her messy knot was damp and clinging to the back of her neck by the time she turned on to her street.

She shifted the straps of her saddlebags and began digging around the inside pocket of her robes for the key as the familiar slate roof drew into sight. Like most of the houses in this row, Callista's was cheerfully whitewashed, second floor windows peeping out from beneath deep dormers.

Unlike most of the houses in this row, Callista's had a man in full plate armor standing on its step, clad in the colors of the Guard and digging the point of his broadsword into the flagstones.

Callista froze, eyes narrowing.

Someone behind her, caught unawares by her abrupt stop, jostled into her and swore, but she hardly noticed. What in the Nether was _he_ doing there?

More mystified than really alarmed – yet – she whirled and pretended to examine the wares of a tinkerer who'd laid his mechanical gadgets out on the grass near the street, mentally running through her list of possible offences. Since she hadn't spent much time in the city lately this was easier than usual, and her eyes widened again as she realized, with surprise and a strange sort of misgiving, that she couldn't think of any. None that would result in one guard and not a whole squad of them, at any rate. Oh, plaguing hells, had that jittery Madame Fairchild actually been right?

Seized by the twin specters of impending arrest and her colleague's vindictive gloating, she turned away from the mechanical squirrels gamboling on the grass and began to walk rapidly back the way she'd come, resisting the impulse to pull her hood up to hide her face.

She needed someone to mull this over with (as well as somewhere to stash her saddlebags, which were beginning to dig uncomfortably into her shoulder). With that end in mind, she cut down the first cross street she came to, pointing herself towards the dignified stone towers of the Academy of the Arcane Arts.

* * *

Ensconced in a comfortably-worn armchair behind an antique reading desk, Tunregar Weldiciruit leaned close over the yellowed page in front of him. The meticulously-inked diagrams, faded by age to a tea-stained brown, were difficult to read even in the light of the enchanted globe that floated over his right shoulder. An original treatise on underwater ward-breaking by Erzavet the Bluefaced…

He dipped his quill absently into the inkwell, and was just about to set nib to paper when a sharp knock scattered his thoughts. Annoyed at the interruption, he toyed for a moment with the idea of not answering and pretending to be out, but when the sound repeated itself more insistently he set the quill down with a sigh. "It's unlocked!" he called, somewhat impatiently.

The door swung open wide enough to admit Callista's slim form, clad in a dusty traveling cloak and dragging a pair of saddlebags. She nudged the door shut with her foot as she dropped her luggage and looked at him. "The Stormwind Guard is on my front lawn," she announced, with a curious mixture of irritation and the self-satisfaction of someone who's just thrown a lit firecracker into the room.

Not ready to give up his annoyance just yet, Tun furrowed his brow and traced a finger down a particularly obscure passage in Erzavet's text. Still grasping for the pieces of his interrupted thought (and having heard similar pronouncements too many times before to be more than vaguely alarmed), he picked up his quill again and flicked the excess ink off against the side of the well. "All of it?" he asked.

"No, just the one. How many do I need?"

Tun finally gave his half-formed sentence up for lost and dropped his quill, leaning back in his armchair and looking up at his friend. If she'd been hauling around two clearly heavy saddlebags, it meant she hadn't been home yet since her trip, which meant, despite her apparent unconcern, she was taking this at least somewhat seriously. Sympathy born of affection warred with suspicion born of long association. "What did you do?" he asked, tilting his head to eye her critically sidelong.

"I didn't do anything!" Callista said, shedding her dusty cloak and perching herself on one of the chairs opposite his desk with a disgruntled expression. "Which is exactly what I don't like. How am I supposed to know what to lie about?"

She looked sincere enough (relatively speaking), and for once Tun thought that she might actually be innocent. After all, she'd been spending most of her time lately away from the city, and making inroads on the recent plague of imps was something Alliance authorities would be likely to appreciate rather than condemn (even if her rates _were_ exorbitant). "How do you know he was going to arrest you?"

"What else would he be doing in my yard?"

Tun carefully shut Erzavet's tome and pushed it to the side of his desk, waving away his reading light so it floated up into one of the corners. "You could've tried asking him..." he said.

Callista wrinkled her nose, clearly not thinking much of that idea.

Tun rolled his eyes. "You can't avoid your own house forever."

"I _had _been planning to move…" she said thoughtfully. Clad in pale green and silver caster's robes, she looked wholly un-warlock-like and almost indistinguishable from any of his colleagues in the Sanctum. Which was what she _should_ have been, Tun thought with a mix of regret and irritation, if she'd ever learned to exercise a little less recklessness and a little more restraint.

He snorted, shifting in his chair and stretching a little after so long poring over his work. Maybe it was for the best she'd interrupted him. He couldn't even remember if he'd eaten yet today. "Unless it's to Shattrath City, you'd better find out what they want. I'll go with you if you think it will help."

"I suppose," Callista said reluctantly, not looking particularly pleased with the inevitable. She glanced down at herself and made a face at the state of her clothes. "But not today. I need to clean up before dinner."

She _was_ rather dusty, Tun observed. The green mageweave of her robes faded to muddy brown at the hem. "Is there any dirt left in Goldshire?" he wondered.

"Nope, got it all. Can I borrow your house?"

"Yes," he said, drawing a ring of keys from his pocket and pulling one off before tossing it to her. "Here. I need to finish, but I'll meet you at sixth bell."

"Thanks," she replied, catching it. She stood and began collecting her cloak and saddlebags from where she'd dropped them, slinging one over each shoulder. "If I see Archmage Gaiman on the stairs I'll pretend I don't know you," she said, waggling her brows playfully.

Tun rolled his eyes affectionately. "Go take a bath."

She left and shut the door behind her, leaving him once more in the pleasant solitude of his study. Motes of dust drifted lazily in the light that slanted through the arched window behind him, and the enchanted gadgets and focusing crystals that bookended the tomes on his shelves gleamed. He stretched contentedly again before reaching for Erzavet and waving his reading lamp over to bob above his shoulder.

All things considered, he didn't think Callista's mysterious trespasser would amount to anything serious. Probably just a guardsman canvassing for a missing child, or searching for the owner of some recovered object. Or, at the very worst, asking questions about some infraction so minor she'd forgotten about it – sometimes he suspected that Callista deliberately encouraged these kinds of pickles just because she got bored. Hopefully she wasn't actually in too much trouble. Not that, he reasoned dryly, anything could possibly be more trouble than the last of her escapades he'd involved himself in. At least there were no dreadlords in the Guard.

He muttered a simple cantrip that riffled the pages of his book open to where he'd left off, fanning the scent of old parchment into the air. Leaning over the faded diagram once more, he picked up his quill.

* * *

Much cleaner and changed into a spare tunic from one of her packs, Callista shifted in the armchair she'd curled herself into in Tun's sitting room, rearranging the heavy tome on her lap. A glance at the intricate timepiece on the mantle (the clock had no casing, revealing the stylized gears and counterweights of the mechanism) confirmed that it was already nearly seven o'clock. Giving a fond snort at her friend's tardiness, she stretched briefly and turned the page, examining the neatly-penned enchantments on the other side.

Tun's latest academic obsession was with rune magic, and this particular volume featured an in-depth survey of warding inscriptions. Some of them looked very similar to the spells she'd carved into the crystal spheres she used in her demon-catching, and she skimmed the chapters with interest, pausing to read more thoroughly the bits that looked applicable. Maybe she'd see if Tun would let her borrow this one.

The click of the doorknob turning caught her attention. She looked up in time to see Tun hurry in from the street, pausing to hang his leather satchel on a hook near the door. "Sorry I'm late," he said, grimacing at her and running a hand sheepishly through his tousled green hair. "I got distracted – "

He paused as he noticed the book in her lap, excuse forgotten as his gaze suddenly sharpened. "Is that Tabetha's treatise? What did you think of the section on warding against demons?"

Callista closed the book and set it on the end table next to her chair, standing and brushing the wrinkles out of her tunic. The excerpt Tun referred to was actually the first thing she'd read, and from it had concluded that the author, though clearly an exceptionally skilled mage, was familiar with demonic magic only through hearsay. "Elegant and technically brilliant…" she said, quirking a lip, "if you want to get killed."

"I knew it," Tun said with satisfaction. "She forgot to account for counterspells."

"Her enchantments might still be good for cursed objects," Callista said, cocking her head. She handed him back his house key as they ambled out into the street and shut the door behind them. Their shadows stretched long in the mellow light of late afternoon, and the neighborhood was quiet, mostly cleared of the midday bustle. "The ones that can't fight back, at least."

"They might," Tun said, gaze unfocused on the scenery around him as he mused. "Maybe I'll write a commentary."

Callista nodded as she strolled along at his side, content to slow her pace to match the gnome's smaller steps. Summer days in Stormwind could be scorching, and she enjoyed the evenings the best. Especially evenings with the prospect of good food and a long night's sleep at the end of them.

Laughter and the sound of clattering plates spilled from the open doors of The Gilded Rose as they drew near. The usual dinner crowd was out in force, and patrons leaned against the porch rails, pipes lit, or hallooed cheerfully to attract the attention of arriving friends. Callista slid sideways through the press around the doors, Tun following in her wake.

The sound intensified as they moved into the enclosed space, and she stood on tiptoes to try to see over the shoulders of the people around her (some of whom were dusky-skinned Night Elves or Draenei, and much taller than she was).

"I think Nissa's already here!" Tun shouted to be heard over the din. "There!" he said after a moment, tugging on the sleeve of her tunic.

A Night Elf woman and her two armored companions moved out of Callista's line of sight to reveal a purple-haired gnome seated at a booth, a harried-looking human man hunched over a book across from her. She waved as Callista and Tun waded through the crowd to join them.

They'd already ordered a large potful of beef stew, and it sat half-empty on the tabletop along with two untouched bowls. "We were going to wait," Nissa said with a teasing smile at Tun, nodding her chin towards it, "but, well…we know you, dear."

"I'm not _always_ late," Tun said mock-huffily, sliding into the booth beside her and pecking her on the cheek.

"Only mostly always?" Callista suggested. She dodged the piece of bread crust he threw at her as she sat down next to the young man poring over his book. He didn't even look up at her, muttering inaudibly to himself. "Hello, Darryl," she said, craning her neck to see what could possibly be so interesting.

"Don't talk to me," he muttered distractedly, hunching down further into his seat. "Have to study."

"He's got an examination with Lady Elsharin tomorrow," Nissa explained in response to Callista's raised brow. "He's convinced he's going to open a portal to somewhere so horrible they expel him immediately."

Callista made a disbelieving sound. Darryl was Nissa's protégé, and was about as likely to bungle his portal exam that badly as Callista was to wake up a priestess. "Being expelled isn't _so_ bad," she said, petting him sympathetically on the shoulder before ladling herself a bowl of lukewarm stew.

"Easy for you to say," Darryl replied, completely oblivious to the fact he was being teased as he looked up from his text long enough to scowl at her. His blue eyes were red-rimmed, and the beginnings of a beard scruffed his chin. "I _hate_ demons. And blood. Oh, Light, warlocks have to look at blood, don't they?"

Nissa sighed, reaching over to pat his hand with one of her small ones. "No one's going to _make_ you be a warlock," she reassured him patiently. "You're going to do fine."

"He needs a stronger drink," Callista recommended, dunking a piece of bread into her stew.

"Drinks," Darryl muttered. The paper muffled his voice as he let his head fall to bury his face in the crease of his open book. "Lots and lots of drinks."

He cut such a perfect caricature of misery that Callista laughed. "Oh, alright," she said. She popped the piece of bread into her mouth and stood up from the table. "I'm getting him drinks," she said to Tun and Nissa. "Do you want anything?"

"She's been fleecing the nobility again," Tun said in a stage whisper to his girlfriend, pulling his face into a frown.

"Has she?" Nissa asked delightedly. "In that case I'd like a glass of mead, please."

"None for me, thanks," Tun said, making a face and waving his hands in a warding gesture. He planned to wake up "early" tomorrow to work on his new treatise, and even though early for Tun meant sometime around eleven, Callista knew better than to press the issue.

"Alright. I'll be back," she said, turning to weave her way through the sea of people that filled the inn.

She managed after a few moments to push herself to within sight of the bar, which was packed with both the Stormwind regulars and the usual crowd of travelers passing through. The bartender hovered at the far side taking the order of a large party of dwarves, and Callista resigned herself to wait.

She'd only been standing for a few minutes when a large hand settled heavily on her shoulder. Startled, she jerked and then whirled around. Opening her mouth to playfully scold whichever of her friends it was for alarming her, she shut it again, narrowing her eyes, as she realized she didn't recognize the man's face. Hair, nose, skin…all of his features were bland and utterly nondescript, and her gaze seemed to slide involuntarily away from him if she stared too hard. The effect set her teeth on edge. "Do I know you?" she asked, staring at his hand in a way that suggested he might shortly be losing it.

"Probably not," the man said, looking completely unaffected by her glare as he removed the offending limb. "Callista Dunhaven?"

"Who?" she asked, crinkling her brow in puzzlement.

The man smiled, an expression cold as the flash of a knife. "Don't."

She eyed him venomously but didn't try to lie again, liking this encounter less by the second. This was exactly the sort of thing she expected to happen in a shady corner of The Slaughtered Lamb, not in a crowded public space when she was out to dinner with friends. Either way, though, Callista had bargained with creatures a lot nastier than whoever this man thought he was, and it would take a great deal more than a smile and a face like a blank piece of parchment to intimidate her. "Whatever you want," she said, showing her teeth in imitation of his expression, "_no_."

"That would be very rash," the man said. "I have a business proposition for you."

"Then write me a letter."

"I suppose I could," he said, stroking his completely unremarkable chin thoughtfully. "What's the postage to the Vault, I wonder."

Callista's eyes narrowed even further as her sensation of being cornered increased. Well, that had degenerated into bald-faced threats rather sooner than she'd expected. She wished Tun or someone would come over to see what was taking her so long. "You tell me," she said aggressively, trying to project more certainty than she felt. "Last I checked, _extortion_ was still illegal."

She didn't think it was possible, but the man's smile became even more glacial. "Take a walk with me."

There was nothing Callista would've liked less on all of Azeroth, but unfortunately she didn't see that she had a choice. This almost certainly had something to do with that guard she'd seen posted at her house, in which case not only did this man know where she lived, but he also had more clout with the Alliance powers that be than she could ever dream of. Since she had no intention of fleeing the continent, she followed coldly in his wake as he made his way to the exit.

She craned her head back over her shoulder as she jostled through the crowd, trying and failing to catch the eye of one of her companions back at the booth. Cursing inwardly, she crossed the threshold into the cool evening air.

"This only has to be unpleasant if you make it that way," the man said, watching her closely as he fell into step beside her. His features seemed to blur even more in the orangey light of sunset. Whatever enchantment he'd used to mask himself, it was extremely well done.

Callista snorted. "You _threatened_ me. Who are you and what do you want?"

They walked down the cobbled path and back out to the street, leaving behind the patrons smoking on the inn porch. The man steered her to an empty cul de sac ringed with expensive shops, making sure they were alone before continuing. "You want to dispense with the niceties?" he said quietly. "Fine. I'll put it plainly. We have a task for you, you'll do it, or we'll put you in a cell until even your familiars die of old age."

A baleful glitter entered Callista's eyes at his blunt statement. Dealing with demons, she'd gotten very good at disregarding heartfelt threats, but something about this man made her nervous. "You can't arrest me," she said, "because I haven't done anything. Or does SI:7 invent its own evidence now?" That last part was a guess, but she thought it was a good one based on the quality of his disguise.

The man actually laughed, flashing those cold white teeth again. "We've done much worse than that, I promise you."

The temperature of the balmy night air suddenly seemed to drop as icy fingers of dread closed around her. He was lying. He had to be…or she was in more trouble than she'd even thought possible.

Something of what she was feeling must have told on her face (she suspected she'd paled) because he continued with a dismissive flick of his hand. "Not that we'd need to resort to such methods. The House of Nobles has resurrected the Wishock petition, and you and your…colleagues…have just become very, very vulnerable."

The Wishock petition? It took Callista a moment to place the name, but when she did she nearly laughed. "You mean they're shutting down The Slaughtered Lamb?" She tossed her hands up in faux despair. "Oh, no, wherever will I drink?"

"Yes, that was the petition's original purpose," the man said, and she thought she could read hard amusement on his strangely malleable face. "But its reach has…expanded somewhat in committee. Should it be ratified, any practice of fel magic within the Kingdom of Stormwind will be punishable as highest treason. And before you ask, it _is_ retroactive."

For a moment she was silent, digesting this and feeling the icy fingers creep back. The only reason she hadn't totally surrendered to them yet was that the only evidence she had of any of this was the word of a wholly untrustworthy-looking stranger. If it was really true, what he was telling her was serious enough that she would almost certainly have heard of it already. "Who's sponsoring this petition?" she asked.

"Lord Devereux."

That stopped her cold. Yes, she almost certainly would have heard of this – if the petition's main supporter hadn't been the husband of the warlock community's main political source. She wondered how many of those disappearances Madame Fairchild had been worried about had been colleagues close to the court. Her jaw tightened, and she resisted the urge to close her hand around one of the soul shards she always kept in her pockets. She wasn't completely resigned to whatever "task" this assassin had for her, but her ways out were collapsing around her one by one, and she didn't like the sensation. "Alright," she said in a carefully measured voice. "I believe you had a_..._business proposition_?"_

"See? Not so bad," the man said with another of those knife-like smiles. "The House of Nobles is financing an expedition – mostly knights of the Argent Dawn – to search for a missing settlement of Lordaeron refugees on Kalimdor. You'll be part of it."

Callista's nose crinkled in distaste. "Paladins? What in the Twisting Nether do they want with me?"

The man shrugged. "The route passes near Felwood. And," he continued after a brief pause, "neither of the other parties came back."

Oh. So _that's_ how it was. She could die in a cell, or she could die on a suicide mission. "So you want me to go with them, and do…what, exactly," Callista said, eyeing him scathingly. "Enslave the entire _forest_?"

The man shrugged again. "That's not really my problem, is it? The expedition leaves at dawn in two days on the ship _The Fortitude_. Third pier. Your commander is Sir Aren Westwood. Take it or leave it."

"And if I take it?" Callista asked, unable to keep the spite from her voice.

"Then we don't arrest you," the man said. The sun had gone down behind the buildings, and dark shadows flickered oddly across his features. "And you'll be paid, of course. With an option for future immunity to all related crimes, should you decide to stay on with the House of Nobles. If you survive, naturally."

"I see," she said. Somewhere in the last few exchanges, her dread had transmuted into a cold but savage fury. No matter how she spun it, she could think of no way to get out of this.

For now.

She needed to cut her losses and buy herself time to think of something else, and so she narrowed her eyes. "Then I suppose I have no choice but to accept."

"I knew you'd be reasonable," the man said, white teeth glinting in the dark. "No need to look so angry. Think of it as…an opportunity."

"Angry? I'm just flattered you went to all this trouble for me," Callista sneered.

The man laughed, a sound with all the warmth of drawn steel. "Don't be." He smirked as he turned to depart. "Any of your kind would've done. You were just the easiest to catch." He left the words to rankle, sauntering off and fading into the shadowed street.

Callista, momentarily speechless, merely glared viciously at his retreating back.


	3. Sunrise

Still seething (and more than a little bewildered at the speed with which her life had been upended) Callista walked back through the twilight towards the friendly glow of The Gilded Rose. The knots of people socializing outside had dispersed with sunset, but as she pushed open the heavy wooden door she found the inside still bright and cheerfully packed.

_The easiest to catch _– the assassin's words galled her, in large part because they were probably true. In her work as glorified vermin-catcher for the nobility, she'd stopped just barely short of advertising her real talents. That she was a warlock was an open secret that almost all of her employers knew, though few were ill-bred enough to talk about it. She'd been arrogant enough to think that their influence would protect her (who else would keep a felhound from savaging the game on their hunting estates?), but in fact it seemed to have done the opposite, making of her a pathetically easy victim for whoever had arranged this expedition. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. _If what that assassin had said was true, they could collect enough material to arrest her several times over.

She pushed past the crowded bar to find Tun, Nissa and Darryl still seated where she'd left them, laughing at some anecdote and picking at the remains of their dinners. They looked up as she approached (all except Darryl, who continued to frown at some particularly tricky passage in his text).

"What _happened_ to you?" Tun asked, an affectionate note of scolding in his voice. "We were just about to go look – "

He trailed off as he got a better view of her sour expression. "Callista? Are you alright?"

"I think I've been enlisted," she said, settling back into her seat and jabbing her spoon violently into her bowl of now cold stew.

"Enlisted?" he echoed, setting down his own spoon to stare. "Into _what_?"

That was actually an excellent question. She knew she was supposed to get on a boat with a bunch of (no doubt) bleeding heart paladins to look for some foolish pack of refugees, but she wasn't even sure where they were going. "I don't know. Some kind of rescue mission, I think."

Nissa scoffed (probably at the idea of Callista rescuing anyone). "Tell them you aren't interested."

"I did. The assassin they sent to talk to me wasn't interested in my lack of interest."

"They sent an assassin?" Nissa asked, suspicion entering her large brown eyes. "What did you _do_?"

Callista made a face in response. Why were people forever asking her that? "Nothing!" she said, taking another sharp stab at her stew. The spoon clattered furiously off the side of the bowl. "The House of Nobles is reviving some anti-warlock petition, and if I don't play along they're going to arrest me."

"That isn't even legal!" Tun said, almost knocking over his mug with an indignant gesture.

"What are you going to do?" Nissa asked, somewhat more practically, steadying Tun's mug just before it splattered her with beer.

Callista rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She was still angry, but an uncomfortable trapped feeling was beginning to erode the edges of her ire. "I don't know. The ship leaves in two days, and I said I'd be on it. Not that I intend to be," she finished defiantly.

Tun pulled up one side of his mouth, misgiving tingeing his expression as he recognized her tone as one that no good ever came of. "Just…please _try_ to be careful?"

Callista wasn't very good at being careful under the best of circumstances, let alone when she was as agitated as she was now. She twitched her shoulders impatiently, gazing darkly into the dregs of her stew. "When I find out who did this, I'll be _careful_ my felhound doesn't _choke_ on him."

Tun rolled his eyes and sighed.

Darryl, who up to this point had been chewing his lip as he stared at his book with an air of total absorption, chose this moment to raise his rumpled head and peer at her. "Being arrested won't be _so_ bad," he said, patting her shoulder with an ink-smeared hand.

Callista, who under other circumstances might've been amused at the mage's uncharacteristic spark of malice, shot him a look of pure venom.

* * *

The next afternoon, Callista sat on her bed with a large map of Kalimdor spread out across her quilt, narrowing her eyes in the general direction of Winterspring. A tough leather pack, half filled with traveling gear, slumped against her side.

So far today she'd already been to The Slaughtered Lamb to speak with Madame Fairchild (the woman had been alarmed at her news, then smug, then coolly indifferent to Callista's fate, in approximately that order) and down to the docks to speak with the Stormwind harbormaster. An irritable clerk had informed her that yes, the ship _The Fortitude_ was due to depart at sunrise tomorrow, commissioned by a knight of the Argent Dawn to sail to the elven port of Auberdine, but had refused to tell her anything more.

The whole morning gone, and she'd learned nothing she hadn't already known or couldn't have guessed.

She prodded the stylized tree on the map that represented Auberdine, tracing her fingertip across the murky green blotch that marked Felwood. From what she'd gathered, they were to land at the port and then travel east through the forest – but _why_? The only thing on the other side was Winterspring. Even if this mysterious group of settlers had landed there, it would be easier to approach from the south and avoid Felwood (and the inhospitable mountain range that bounded it) altogether. Unless the settlement was _in_ the mountains. But who in the Nether would make their home there?

Frustrated by the lack of answers, she swept the map aside and climbed off the bed, pulling her wardrobe open and scowling at the contents. Beginning to pack felt unpleasantly like surrender.

She pawed through the clothes hanging before her, pulling out a black robe with crimson accents and eyeing it critically. Callista had two full sets of arcanist's attire; one was the silver and green outfit she wore on legitimate business, bearing only the sort of enchantments typical to fire mages, and the other was this. Many of the runes woven into it were demonic, and though it was better suited to the kind of magic she wielded, it would mark her instantly as a warlock to anyone who looked at her.

After a brief moment of indecision she grabbed the black robes and tossed them onto her open pack. That expedition wanted a warlock…well, now they _had_ one. If they didn't like what they'd ended up with, maybe they should reevaluate their recruitment methods.

Matters of attire resolved, she cast the map one last frustrated glance before leaving the room and stalking downstairs to the pantry. She shifted aside a sack of flour to clear a trapdoor set into the solid planks of the floor and pulled the iron ring set into its end, revealing a wooden staircase that led down into shadow. If she was really going through with this farce, she'd need more than just clothes.

She waved a hand as she descended to light the torches set in brackets around the room below. The walls were roughly square and made of grey stone, but the floor below was earth; probably it had been a root cellar before the warlock turned it to less ordinary purposes. Shelves cluttered with books and various arcane objects sat along two walls, while a permanent summoning circle dominated the center of the floor, glowing with purple and green runes.

Callista made straight for the far shelf, rustling among the objects laid upon it until she pulled out a dagger in a thick leather sheath. She didn't usually go armed, having little skill with any kind of weapon, but luckily this one didn't require much – it was a Legion blade, and the enchantments on it made any wound it delivered devilishly hard to staunch. She slid the dagger from its sheath, noting with satisfaction the sickly shine of the metal, before replacing it and snagging a bag of infernal stones and an almost full pouch of soul shards with her free hand. Better to bring more than she thought she'd need – paladins seemed to have few qualms about smashing things with those hammers, but they got very squeamish about souls.

Her gaze fell on a basketful of ensnared demons, a pile of spheres glowing a poisonous green with dark figures floating at their hearts, and her brow furrowed. She didn't know what sort of token "compensation" she would receive for this expedition, but it wouldn't come close to equaling what she'd miss out on here. She wouldn't even be able to sell the crystals she'd already empowered.

A vindictive impulse to sabotage the wards on a few and wedge them beneath the axles of the first noble carriage she saw seized her, but was only barely outweighed by practicality. Those enchantments would hold for years, and she could always sell them upon her return. Besides, the way her luck had been running lately, the demons would probably manage to claw their way out in a crowd of schoolchildren, or kittens, or something equally tragic.

Shaking her head, she tucked the scabbarded dagger and the two pouches beneath her arm, ascending the stairs and waving out the torches. She was already mostly packed, had exhausted all the potential sources of information she could reach in a day, and had sent a letter to Lord Duncan in the morning post, requesting that he mail his reply to Auberdine. With any luck, he'd demand her immediate return to Stormwind.

Satisfied that she'd done all she could to prepare herself for the morrow, Callista was left with the remainder of the afternoon and evening to kill. The temptation to start drinking now and show up at the docks at sunrise hungover and utterly unfit for duty was very strong, but she was torn as to whether her commander's dismay would be worth spending the rest of the day emptying her stomach over _The Fortitude_'s side.

Oh, well.

Tossing the leather pouches onto her kitchen table, she dropped into a chair and tapped her fingernails thoughtfully against the wood, staring at the swirl of the grain without really seeing it. Perhaps she'd make her way over to The Blue Recluse now and just see how things worked out.

* * *

The next morning, she led her horse, burdened with packs, through the murky darkness that preceded the first glint of dawn. Nothing else stirred in the streets, and the clip-clop of the mare's hooves struck lonely echoes from the cobbles. Callista yawned, rubbing her wrist against her eyes to clear the sleep from them. Last night had ended in a compromise: she'd only drunk _half_ as much as she'd initially intended, and even though she wasn't hungover – exactly – she was still exhausted and had an unpleasantly empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Hopefully the seas would be smooth today, and her shipmates would be sensible enough to leave her alone.

The mare's ears pricked and she snorted as the first sounds of Stormwind's port disturbed the pre-dawn silence.

Callista grimaced at the voices of sailors and seabirds, mood souring. Until this moment, she'd managed to hold out some hope, no matter how small or irrational, that she'd somehow manage to evade this journey. But now, with the laden mare plodding at her side as the masts of ships rose above the dark profile of the city, inevitability settled in heavily. She was really sailing to Auberdine, and there was really nothing she could do about it.

She muttered a curse under her breath.

Leading her horse around the next corner, the long piers of the harbor came into view, crowded with moored ships and lit by dozens of lanterns carried by sailors or hanging from posts set onto the piers themselves. The cries of seabirds awakened by the noise floated down from the dark sky, and the leaping shadows caused by the sway of the lights only added to the impression of hurried activity. It was more than sailors and the large ships that caused it; many small fishing boats were already putting out to sea for the day, and the space between the piers and the large warehouses that serviced them was thick with animals and carts preparing to be loaded into ships' holds.

Callista dragged her reluctant mare into the midst of the chaos, too tired to be very careful as the crowd jostled her against merchants' carriages and sleepy-looking sailors. A great deal of cursing (some of it directed at her) and the clatter of wood against wood filled the salty air. She returned various shouted oaths with scowls as she pushed her way towards the third pier.

_The Fortitude_, a four-masted clipper with a raked-forward bow, sat tied to it with hawsers thicker than Callista's wrists. Not being a merchant vessel, her pier was at least less crowded with carts and squawking animals than some of the others, but there were still plenty of sailors dashing about, as well as an assortment of more bewildered-looking people who Callista assumed were passengers. She wondered which of them was Sir Aren Westwood. Her scowl became more pronounced at the thought.

No one took any notice of her as she halted her mare at the edge of the pier and looked around skeptically. A sailor led a horse barded in the Argent Dawn's black, silver and gold up the gangplank, confirming that she was in the right place, but who here was she supposed to announce herself to? She was gathering the energy to flag down one of the many ship's hands hurrying past when a strange male voice addressed her.

"Excuse me, miss?"

She turned to see the speaker, and blinked as she got a good look at him. A curly-haired human man clad in a black and silver tabard over chainmail smiled back at her. He was very broad-shouldered, and short enough to make her wonder if there was dwarven blood in his family, but that wasn't what made her stare: a large purple bruise swelled his left cheekbone, and he had another, almost identical man (who she took to be his brother) clinging to his shoulder for support. This other man swayed slightly, and though the right half of his face was clean-shaven (though nicked), the other half sported a day's growth of beard.

"Are you Sir Aren?" Callista asked, looking doubtfully between the first man and his blearily-grinning brother.

The man shook his head with an apologetic smile. "I'm Nathanial Redbranch, and this is my brother, Anduin."

"That's Ander, to everyone who isn't a twit," his brother interrupted with a glare at Nathanial, clapping him (mostly affectionately) on the shoulder. The movement almost caused him to lose his balance, and he had to clutch at his brother's pauldron again to regain it. "Our mother wanted a war hero, but instead she got me," he added in a mock-sorrowful whisper to Callista.

"I'm sorry you have to see him like this," Nathanial said, shaking his head. "He's not usually this drunk."

"I hate _boats_," Ander pronounced as though that settled everything, glowering at the innocuous wooden side of _The Fortitude_.

"Are you in Sir Aren's company, too?" Nathaniel asked, ignoring his brother. "I can take care of your horse, if you want. I think the commander is calling a meeting on the pier before we board."

Callista eyed the two men indecisively, only partially due to Nathanial's offer. So, these were the people she'd be traveling with. She'd been determined to hate them, but she was finding the brothers extremely difficult to dislike. "Yes, thank you," she said neutrally, torn between her previous resolution to be as nasty as possible to everyone involved in this and her sudden impulse to be friendly.

"Stay. Here," Nathanial instructed his brother sternly, propping him up against a stack of crates prepared for loading. He waited until Callista had removed her packs and saddlebags before taking the mare's bridle. "This shouldn't take long," he assured her.

Ander looked her over from where he was leaning against a rope-trussed barrel for support, poking one of the nicks on the shaved half of his face. "Someone tried to kill me last night, you know," he said, leaning in earnestly, close enough that she could smell the whiskey on his breath. "He had a knife _this_ long."

Callista made a face, prodding his armored shoulder with her finger until he stumbled back a step. "They couldn't have tried very hard," she said.

Nathanial made an exasperated noise, accidentally jerking the bridle and causing the white mare to snap at him. "Oh, for Light's sake, _Anduin_! No one tried to kill you. For one thing, it wasn't last night, it was this morning. And for another, it was _me_. Trying to help you shave."

"It was a criminal," Ander said with the supreme certainty of the very drunk. "And I punched him."

"Well, that part's true, at least," Nathaniel muttered, rubbing the purple bruise on his cheekbone. "Please make sure he doesn't fall in?" he asked Callista, glancing at Ander wearily.

After another brief moment of waffling, Callista resolved her dilemma in favor of the two brothers. Obviously, they weren't officers, and so had nothing to do with her conscription. That meant she could be nice to them without breaking her resolution to ruin the lives of everyone responsible for it.

Ander tried to sling an arm around her shoulder, smiling in a way he clearly believed to be charming, and she sidestepped neatly. "Well, I promise not to _push_ him," she said, but her lip twitched as she did.

Nathanial sighed, rolling his eyes at his brother. "Good enough for me." Turning, he clucked his tongue at the white mare as he led her away down the pier.

Ander waited for him to meld into the crowd surrounding _The Fortitude_ before turning back to Callista, grabbing at a crate as the motion unsteadied him. "I always knew it was Nate," he confided smugly. "I just felt like punchin' him."

Callista tried not to laugh, but failed as it came out a choked snort. "I take it you two aren't paladins?"

"Us? Nah," Ander said, waving a leather-gloved hand vaguely. She wondered if Nathanial had managed to get him into all that armor while he was drunk, or if he'd simply been wearing it last night. "I bet Nate could've done it, but they would never have taken me. Didn't want to be separated." He peered more closely at Callista, making an effort to focus his gaze. Since she wasn't wearing any robes, arcane or demonic, over her tunic, his inspection probably didn't tell him much. "Are you our mage?" he asked, finally. "Didn't know we were getting one."

"Sort of…" Callista said evasively, cocking her head. People's reactions to discovering she was a warlock were always interesting. Actually, they were often so interesting that Callista tried to avoid this kind of admission entirely, but since she'd been hired specifically for her talents with demons, she didn't really see the point of that now. Ander didn't seem like the type to launch into an appalled diatribe about the evils of the Twisting Nether, but you could never tell. Especially with drunks.

"'Sort of?'" Ander said, creasing his brow as he tried to reason that out through the whiskey in his brain. "How are you 'sort of' a mage?"

She held out her hand, and emerald-green flame flared briefly in her palm in answer.

For a moment, Ander's eyes widened. Then he wrinkled his nose and staggered slightly as he tried to eye her critically sideways. "_You're_ the warlock? You don't look like one."

Callista snorted, not really offended and more unsurprised than anything, relieved his reaction wasn't worse. Most warlocks heard that sort of thing frequently – in all the common tales they were cast as villains, and were usually described as the storyteller's ideal of appropriately monstrous. It sometimes gave people some odd ideas. "What were you expecting? An orc?"

"Or a hag," Ander suggested cheerfully. His gaze traveled over her again, and he raised a brow lecherously at her as he grinned. "I think I'll get over it."

If he'd been sober that would've earned him at least a scornful look (Ander wasn't really her type, and Callista was neither shy nor delicate about deflecting unwanted attention), but since he was obviously very drunk, and not, on the whole, unlikeable, she chose to ignore his remark instead.

Ander seemed totally unaffected by her lack of interest. Actually, he shortly became distracted as a red-haired woman in low-cut green robes walked past with an armful of luggage, carrying the bags against her chest in a way that propped up her already remarkable bosom. If she noticed the man's leering, she didn't spare him a glare for it.

"Hey," Ander said once she'd passed, staring at Callista as though a brilliant idea had just occurred to him. "You can summon demons, riiiiight?"

"Yes, I have a succubus, and no, you won't like her as much as you think you will," Callista said, amused by his drunkenly eager expression. Letting Azlia loose on Ander would be wretchedly mean even by her standards.

"I think," Ander said, grinning wryly and wobbling as he tried to straighten himself against the crates, "that you're greatly overestimating my standards."

Actually, she was pretty sure she was exactly estimating his desire not to get stabbed in the neck, but Ander didn't seem to be in any frame of mind to take her word for it. Besides, the fact he'd been propositioning _her_ not five minutes ago made his comment slightly less endearing than it might otherwise have been. "Do you ever get slapped in taverns?" Callista wondered, picturing what would happen if he made a similar remark to someone like Lady Devereux.

Ander blinked at her, his lopsided scruff adding to his incredulous expression. "How did you know?"

She probably would've enlightened him, but a female voice with a mild Ironforge brogue broke into the conversation. "Ander, are you pestering the lasses again?"

"Nah-uh!" Ander said. He managed, by executing an awkward hop-shuffle, to pivot around to face the lady dwarf without pitching onto his face. "She's not a lass, she's a _warlock_," he said with the satisfaction of someone who's just made an unassailable point.

Callista, who really ought to have been offended by now, was so tickled by the juxtaposition of Ander's obliviously pleased look with the flicker of horror in the dwarf woman's eyes that she doubled over with laughter.

The dwarf, who appeared, by the finely-wrought silver and gold plate armor she wore, to be a paladin, relaxed slightly once it became apparent that Callista was not about to summon a doomguard onto the hapless Ander's head. She sized her up for a moment before seeming to conclude that she wasn't immediately a menace. "If you set fire to his head, lass, I daresay the Light would forgive you," she said dryly.

"Would _not_!"

Callista had barely gathered enough breath to answer, but the sight of Ander's indignant, half-shaven face as he protested sent her into another gale of laughter.

The dwarf leaned against a massive warhammer that gleamed in the torchlight, waiting for her to settle herself. Clear green eyes winked from either side of her silver noseguard, and tightly braided red hair peeped from beneath her helm. "Wynda Threehammer," she said by way of introduction, once Callista managed to choke down her amusement long enough to look at her. "I can't say I care much for fiends, lass, but do your part and I daresay we'll all get on."

"Callista Dunhaven," the warlock said, sobering unpleasantly as the remark about doing her part reminded her why she was here, "and I don't think you have anything to worry about." Not past Auberdine, anyway, if she had any say in the matter.

Wynda nodded, apparently satisfied, and slung her hammer onto her armored shoulder as easily as if it were made of matchsticks. "Well, come along then. Nathanial sent me after you. Everyone else is ready to board."

Bowing to the unavoidable, Callista picked up her saddlebags, hefting one in each hand and looping the straps of her pack over her arm.

Ander pushed himself away from his pile of crates, weaving precariously along the edge of the pier until Wynda took pity on him and threw an arm around his waist. The dwarf was a head or two shorter than his brother, and Ander had to hunch slightly to lean on her shoulder. "You are exactly the wrong height for an armrest," he slurred, struggling to keep his grip on the smooth metal of her pauldron.

"Aye, but I'm still tall enough to box your ears, laddie, and don't you forget it," she said good-naturedly, steering him around a trio of bickering sailors.

Callista trailed a step behind them, disgruntled expression slowly creeping back onto her face. Wynda and the Redbranches may have been pleasant enough at first impression, but that did nothing to quell her ire at being saddled with a potentially deadly trip she wanted no part of.

Black seawater glimmered to her left, close below the level of the pier now that the tide was high. Sailors and passengers still thronged, dark shadows against _The Fortitude_'s graceful bulk, but the tenor of the hubbub had changed. She could hear more farewells than shouted orders among the noise.

Wynda led them towards a knot of people gathered out of the way near a pile of discarded fishing nets, half-dragging Ander along in her purposeful stride. Four pairs of eyes, two faintly glittering and two bright with their own glow, turned to regard them as they drew close.

Callista lagged back further at the sight, even as Ander let go of Wynda's shoulder long enough to wave his arm in something that, if she turned her head and squinted, might have resembled a salute. The Night Elf, for that's who the silvery pair of eyes belonged to, didn't faze her (Night Elves distrusted most mages, and all warlocks, and though Callista reflexively returned the dislike she wasn't afraid of them), but the large Draenei who stood behind her gave her pause.

If the universe had set itself to create a race completely anathema to Callista, it couldn't have done much better than Draenei. She considered them a diabolical fusion of her two least favorite things in the world – Eredar warlocks and the Holy Light – and as a result avoided them twice as hard as she did either of those things separately.

Or at least she tried to.

Aware that there was no escape this time, she shifted her packs on her shoulder and picked up her head assertively as she approached in Ander and Wynda's wake. Nathanial gave a half smile and waggled his fingers at her in greeting, while the cool light of the elven woman's gaze swept over her appraisingly. She must've seen something she didn't like (perhaps she could sense the enchantments on the cursed dagger that hung at Callista's hip), because her expression hardened quickly.

Callista narrowed her eyes briefly at her on principle, but was pleased to note that the Draenei, at least, seemed mostly uninterested in her. He watched the mortals before him with patient indifference, muscular tail waving slowly. The glow from the warhammer strapped to his back, its head comprised of a massive spar of purple crystal, waxed and waned gently.

"Everyone present and accounted for, Sir Aren," Wynda said, planting her hammer against the dock with a thud as she addressed the last man in the group.

Callista dropped her packs as she came to halt at her side, turning her gaze to Sir Aren with open hostility. The man was younger than she'd expected. Fair-haired and clean-shaven, he was clad in well-kept plate armor and handsome enough, she supposed, in the wholesome way she'd never much appreciated. Callista couldn't have pictured a more typical-looking paladin if she'd tried, and the fact did nothing to endear him to her.

If the venom in her stare took him aback, he didn't show it. His eyes rested on her for a moment before sweeping across the rest of the company. "For those of you I don't know, my name is Sir Aren Westwood. I command this venture by authority of the Argent Dawn." He paused, smiling slightly. "You all know what you enlisted for, so I won't bore you with repetition. _The Fortitude _sails at first light, and I request that you all gather on deck half a bell before then to be shown to your quarters. Until then, your time is your own."

Most of the party simply nodded or looked on attentively…except Ander.

"Sir, yes, sir," he said glibly, ignoring Wynda's elbow jabbing into his mailed side.

Nathanial groaned and clapped his palm over his eyes as Sir Aren studied his clearly whiskey-sodden brother with raised brow. "What I don't know about, Ander, I can't report for being unfit for duty. Are we clear?"

Ander had the grace to look at least approximately sheepish. "Sir, yes – ow!"

Wynda's second thrown elbow was somewhat more effective.

Callista found herself glad that she'd rejected her initial plan to show up drunk – she'd have been terribly upstaged.

Sir Aren seemed to be finished, and the others were focused on Ander with varying amounts of amusement and irritation, so she took the opportunity to pick up her bags again and move away a little down the pier. Luckily for the paladin, Callista didn't believe in airing her dirty laundry in public, but once she had a spare moment aboard ship she intended to hunt him down and make sure he understood exactly how she felt about his little adventure – and what she intended to do about it. Callista didn't like being blindsided. Or manipulated.

Until then, she was happy to stay out of the way and avoid a confrontation with either that Draenei or the Night Elf woman, who had noticed her departure and was watching her distrustfully. Put off by her stare, Callista twisted her magic into a seeking spell as she returned the look. Since there weren't any demons around the docks, it didn't do anything useful, but it did cause a wholly unnatural green glow to burn in the pupils of her eyes, prompting the Night Elf's lip to curl back a little from her white teeth.

Callista had never seen how the Kaldorei had earned their holier-than-thou attitude when it came to the younger races. Once they'd nearly destroyed Azeroth, and once they'd saved it – she didn't think one for two was a very spectacular record.

"Callista!"

The familiar voice forestalled any more brooding on the subject. Her expression lightened somewhat as she turned to see Tun's lopsided smile, still hazy with sleep.

"I thought I'd come see you off," he said, yawning and rubbing his eyes with his fist. The gnome never had been fond of mornings, and Callista was rather touched he'd made the effort. He glanced at something over her shoulder, did a swift double-take and made a face. "Making friends already?"

Callista twisted around to see the Night Elf's luminous silver eyes regarding them both with haughty disapproval.

"They don't like mages much either, you know," she said, looking back to Tun.

Tun crossed his arms skeptically. "Maybe if you just tried being _nice_ to her…"

"_She_ glared at _me_," Callista protested. True, her blatant display of fel magic hadn't helped matters, but it wasn't like she'd come here to win people over.

For a moment Tun looked like he was going to pursue that further, then he shook his head, rubbing his eyes again. "Just…be _careful_," he said, for the hundredth time since two days ago.

Callista rolled her eyes affectionately, appreciating the concern but not sharing it. "I don't think the Argent Dawn will actually let her put an arrow through me."

"It's not the Dawn I'm worried about." He tilted his head at her reproachfully, green hair still tousled from sleep. "You're going to Felwood. We both know what sort of things live there."

"Demons?" Callista tried, arching a brow. She knew very well that the Shadow Council was probably closer to what he meant. Or at least, one particular member of it. She'd never told him that Nerothos had sought her out after their less than amicable parting outside the walls of Stormwind, and she never intended to – some things, her friend was happier not knowing.

"Yes," Tun muttered. "_Demons_."

"Don't worry so much," she said. "I don't intend to get that far, anyway."

"Good." He hesitated, frowning doubtfully. "Are you _sure_ you don't want me to come with you?"

"_Yes_," Callista said firmly. He'd made this offer last night, too, and she'd said the same thing then. The last time she'd dragged him into one of her misadventures, he'd nearly been killed, and the hours before she'd realized he was alive had been some of the most harrowing of her life. She wouldn't put either of them through that again. Besides, Nissa would throttle her.

"I assumed you'd say that," he said with his sheepish smile, "but I thought I'd check. Just please promise me you won't go looking for trouble."

Callista interpreted this to mean "please don't lead those poor paladins straight to Jaedenar and leave them there." She'd be lying if she said the idea hadn't occurred to her at least briefly, but she doubted she'd have to resort to that. "I promise."

"And remember to write me."

"Paladin's honor," she said, quirking her lips and holding her hand up as though making a vow.

"Good," he said, satisfied. He yawned again, guttering torchlight throwing shadows across his face. "Now, don't miss your boat."

"Oh, go back to bed," she said fondly, rolling her shoulders to settle her packs more comfortably. "I'll see you in a fortnight, tops."

"I hope so." He laced his fingers together to stretch, movement revealing that he'd buttoned his outer robes slightly crookedly in his early-morning stupor. He noticed the same time she did, looking down at himself and wrinkling his nose before throwing his hands up dismissively. "Safe travels," he said.

She gave him a brief smile and wave before turning back towards the ship, sparing a glance for the grey light stealing above the horizon. The sea rippled the color of quicksilver, and the lanterns were beginning to look washed out. Soon it would be sunrise.

Most of her company was nowhere in sight, but Nathanial lingered on the pier in a pool of fading torchlight, saying farewell to a young woman with a sleepy child in her arms. He kissed them both goodbye (the woman looked unhappy but resigned) and then slung his pack over his shoulder, catching up to Callista as she reached _The Fortitude_'s weathered gangplank.

"Excited?" he asked, wistfulness in his smile as his gaze was drawn over her shoulder to the woman on the pier.

Callista laughed dryly, pulling a face at Tun, who waved as he turned to depart. The yells of sailors untying the hawsers that bound the ship to shore mingled with the easy lap of the bay against the wood.

"You have _no_ idea."

* * *

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed/faved so far, it's really encouraging to know people are still interested! For those who are wondering - yes, this will eventually come back around to the epilogue of Hell for the Company, and we will get to see what Nerothos has been up to. He actually has quite a large role in this, he's just got better things to do than watch Callista screw up her life in Stormwind:-p


	4. Confrontations

Aren Westwood was never sorry to leave the city.

Canvas snapped as the salty wind filled The Fortitude's sails, and the deck rolled beneath his feet as the ship skidded across the waves towards the lighthouse that marked the edge of the harbor.

He rested his gauntleted hands lightly on the rail, watching Stormwind's towers blush pink and orange as the sun rose in a blazing ball behind them. The bells of the Cathedral rang out across the water, greeting the dawn, while white seabirds wheeled above the quays.

It was a lovely city, high-walled and home to much that was beloved of the Light...but Stratholme had been lovely, once, too.

He turned away from the receding towers to watch a wildly-grinning goblin woman direct the last of his people to their quarters. Only Wynda, the Redbranch twins and the human woman were left on deck, all clutching the straps of various packs and looking more or less unsteady as the ship crested the larger waves near the harbor mouth.

The goblin woman giggled as the deck pitched again, jolting Ander into Nathanial. He clutched at his brother's shoulder as he fell, dragging them both down in a noisy heap of armor and luggage.

"Hee hee, poor little duckies, you'll get your sea legs soon enough," the goblin said, capering around their tangled forms in demonstration. She paused, cocking her head like an overgrown green sparrow, and prodded Ander in the ribs with a booted toe. "Unless you don't!"

The human woman stumbled and shot her an irritated look as the ship rolled again, finally giving up and sitting down on one of her packs.

Ander managed to claw his way up into a kneeling position, face an interesting shade of pasty green. "'M gonna throw up all over you," he muttered darkly, trying and failing to swivel his head to follow the goblin's cavorting.

Nathanial's eyes widened in alarm. "Ugh, Light, why," he muttered, hurrying to untangle his legs and scramble away from his brother on hands and knees.

Wynda eyed Ander doubtfully, shifting her warhammer on her shoulder. "Better get him to the side, lad, I don't think he's kidding."

She needn't have worried – the ship tilted again and Ander tumbled onto his feet, executing a stumbling run to the rail and hanging his head over it.

Aren tried not to pay too close attention to the sounds – or smells – wafting back from him on the breeze. Ander was a good soldier, but he liked his liquor almost as much as he hated sailing, and the collision of the two was never pleasant.

Nathanial picked his way over to the side with somewhat more decorum, arms spread a little to balance against the shifting of the deck. He grabbed onto the rail with one hand and pressed the other against the bridge of his nose, shaking his head at his brother with a long-suffering air.

Ander looked up and scowled at him between retches, expression made more ridiculous than threatening by the stubble that shadowed only half his jaw. "Don't you…judge me."

"I would never judge you," Nathanial said patiently, giving the words the sound of an oft-repeated refrain.

"Stay with your brother, lad, I'll take your packs," Wynda called. She hefted their bags onto her sturdy arms as she and the human woman turned to follow the goblin down the stairwell built into the bow side of the forecastle.

Ander slumped over the rail up to his armpits and groaned, seemingly oblivious to the glittering spray that soaked his hair and tabard.

"Careful you don't drop your gauntlets," Aren advised, clinging to the rail himself to keep from being unbalanced.

Ander lifted his head long enough to shoot him a glare of scornful misery. It was almost as nasty as that look the human woman – who he'd been told was his warlock – had given him on the docks earlier, but at least he knew why he deserved this one.

"The winter gear is in the hold and there should be fresh supplies waiting for us at Auberdine," Nathanial said, switching topics and covering his mouth as he yawned.

Aren nodded and stared out at the hazy line where sea met sky. Later, the summer sun would burn away the fog clinging to the waves, but for now the far distances vanished in a pearly blur. "Good, thank you. Could Luciel find more detailed maps?"

"Of Felwood? Not past that Tauren outpost. Bloodvenom, I think she called it," Nathanial said, frowning. He leaned his elbows on the rail as he peered over to check on his brother, mail clinking against the wood. "They never quite cleansed that place after the war, you know, and the Sentinels say it's getting worse. The elves' scouting parties are looking more and more like warbands, and sometimes they still don't come back."

Aren grimaced at this news, more resigned than surprised. "I suspected as much, but it never hurts to try." It had long been known that the Burning Legion kept a stronghold in the heart of the forest. They should have stamped it out years ago, but the mortal armies had been greatly weakened after Hyjal, and desperate alliances shattered quickly. Now the place had festered, and he had even heard rumors that dreadlords were consolidating power there, though he wasn't sure if he believed it. Legion sympathizers existed, even within the Alliance, and they'd been known to spread lies for their own purposes. Traitors were common enough now that the Argent Dawn had required noble references for the warlock accompanying them into Felwood – of all the applicants, only the Dunhaven woman had been vouched for.

"Why are we going into that Light-forsaken place, again?" Nathanial muttered.

Aren sighed. "You know why."

He waved a leather-gloved hand absently. "Yes, I know, that mage sent that letter." He planted his hand back on the rail and stared contemplatively into the frothy waves below. "But what I really want to know is, if they were being raided by demons, why in Uther's name would they run in to Felwood? They must've known that's where they were coming from."

Aren shrugged. They'd had this conversation several times since they'd been briefed for this assignment, and neither he nor Ander nor Wynda nor Luciel had managed to find an answer that satisfied everyone. If they had, maybe they wouldn't have been on this ship to begin with. "The letter was dated late fall. Maybe they couldn't get over the passes before the snows fell."

Nathanial made a noncommittal sound, clearly unconvinced.

A few paces away, Ander pulled his head up, curly hair plastered to his face by spray, and wiped his mouth. "I hate boats," he grumbled, swatting vengefully at the rail with his armored fist.

Blowing air out in a sigh, Nathanial rolled his eyes.

* * *

If she'd been in earshot of Ander's pronouncement, Callista would've seconded it wholeheartedly. Tripping against the side of the narrow stairwell, she cursed as the ship pitched again.

"Not long now, duckies," the goblin woman said, turning to grin back at them. Bright purple hair poked out from beneath the orange-striped bandana tied around her head, and the overall effect on top of her shark-like smile was bewildering. "Once we reach blue water we'll sail straight as an arrow, then no more stumbling and fumbling!"

"Just find us our quarters, you green menace," Wynda muttered wearily from behind Callista. The dwarf wasn't getting pitched around quite as much as she was, being both closer to the ground and weighted down with packs, but she was still beginning to look wan and a little seasick.

The goblin ignored her, cackling and prancing down the steps into the neatly-swept corridor beyond.

Callista followed clumsily, keeping a shoulder pressed against the wall for balance as she struggled with her packs. At least the boards had been sanded well enough not to pincushion her with splinters.

The corridor beyond was close and dark (the only light came from the stairwell behind her and one at its opposite end), but very clean. Red-painted doors opened off of it on both sides down its length, numbered in flaking gold paint that shimmered faintly in the shadows.

The goblin stopped in front of one and waved a ring that bristled with keys at it, yanking one off and unlocking the door before tossing it at Callista.

Since she didn't have a free hand, it hit her in the chest, and she narrowly managed to pin it there with her arm.

"Enjoy your stay, duckies!" the goblin cried, tossing open the door before whirling off down the corridor.

Callista jammed a foot against the hinge to keep it from slamming back shut, squeezing through and shrugging her packs onto the floor. She kept the door propped open for Wynda, who followed close behind laden with her own bags and the Redbranches' as well as her massive silver warhammer.

The dwarf discarded her burdens next to Callista's and plopped down on the bottom of the two tightly-blanketed bunks with a relieved sigh. Pulling off her helm, she shook her long red braids free as she inspected the intricately-graven metal. "I get the point of making an impression, but I can't help thinking we'd all sink like millstones in this lot."

Callista snorted, climbing up the ladder to the top bunk and bouncing on the mattress to test it. Wynda taking the bottom one suited her fine; she was far less likely to smack her head up here. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd underdressed." Out on the docks, she'd been the only one of their group not kitted out like she was marching onto a battlefield. Even Ander had managed it…somehow.

"Ach, don't worry your head, lass. You don't belong to the Dawn and no one expects it of you. Sir Aren just likes to keep up appearances in the city."

Appearances she was sure a warlock in full battle gear wouldn't have meshed with anyway. She didn't exactly look the part of a people's champion in robes blazoned with fel runes. Not that, she reminded herself with a twinge of irritation, she was any such thing or ever intended to be, no matter what delusion whoever had herded her into this seemed to be under.

Shaking her head, she leaned over her bed to peer out the porthole set into the adjacent bulkhead. The coastline curved away in a soft green smudge in the distance, and closer to hand all she could see was ocean. The porthole was close enough to the waterline that, during a storm, she imagined all she'd be able to see was seaweed and grey water. "Have you all served together long?" she asked, trying to get a better idea of what sort of crew she'd landed herself in.

Wynda tossed her helmet so it clattered to the floor near their packs, shortly joined by her steel gauntlets. "I've known the twins since they were wee lads, and Sir Aren's led our company since Lordaeron fell," she said, sounding glad for the excuse to talk (no doubt because it distracted her from the seasickness). "Luciel, the elf lass – though I daresay she's seen a sight more centuries than I ever will – joined nigh on a year ago now. Never seen the draenei fellow before, though Aren wouldn't take on anyone who wasn't an alright sort. Even if – "

She cut herself off, and Callista leaned further over the bed to look down at her. Since all she could see was her pauldrons and the top of her ruddy head, the view didn't tell her much, but she still thought she could guess how that sentence would end – probably with something like 'Even if he does look like a bloody demon.' If that was it, Callista could sympathize.

"I'm going back up top, if you want to come," she said, changing the subject out of tact. Sliding back onto the ladder, she jumped the last few rungs to the floor and pulled open the door, which had already swung shut with the movement of the ship.

"Thanks, lass, I think I will," Wynda said. She'd shed the last of her heavy armor, and now wore only the green and brown leathers she'd had on underneath. "Who'd have known a ship full of cargo would bounce around like a bloomin' cork."

Callista, who had begun to feel a bit queasy herself once they were below decks and out of sight of the horizon, made a sound of agreement. She braced a hand along the wall for balance as they picked their way back into the corridor, shutting the door behind them. Like all the passengers' quarters, their door was numbered in gold paint in all the languages of the Alliance: Common largest and on top, followed by Dwarven, Gnomish, Darnassian, and, last and least worn, the almost-familiar characters of Draenei. Clearly this ship had a diverse clientele.

Callista pushed the belt that held her sheathed dagger more comfortably onto her hips as she made for the bars of light slanting down through the stairwell at the end of the corridor, listening to Wynda's quiet grumbling at each new pitch of the deck. Maybe she'd linger up top until the nausea passed and then hunt down this Sir Aren. The faster she let him know what was going on aboard his ship, the better off –

The bars of light flickered out, plunging their end of the corridor into gloom, as the measured clop of hooves descended the stairs.

It had to be the draenei. Unsure where to go (the staircase was far too narrow to push her way up past him), Callista flattened herself against the planks of the wall to let him through, watching the darkened stairwell ambivalently.

Wynda followed suit at her side, though she managed a rather more friendly expression as the draenei ducked through the doorway and into the corridor. His armored form filled it nearly wall to wall, and the bony ridges that ran from his nose across the top of his head almost brushed the ceiling as he looked around in bemusement.

Callista resisted the urge to flatten herself further, distinctly uncomfortable; between the fleshy tendrils that snaked from his chin, the inhuman glow of his eyes, and the heavy goat-like hooves, he reminded her intensely of an eredar, and the memory was not pleasant.

The draenei smiled disarmingly as he noticed them, light from the stairwell streaming in behind him and making his armor shine like water. "Ah, my apologies. I did not see you there." His Common was good, but accented – and since Draenei was a distant descendent-tongue of Eredun, his thickly rolled r's did nothing to dispel Callista's impression of demon.

"Ach, it's no trouble," Wynda said, stepping away a little from the wall. Whatever doubts about the draenei she'd hinted at earlier (if that's truly what it had been), she showed no sign of them now. Smiling in return, she offered him her hand in a forthright gesture. "Wynda Threehammer, at your service. I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

The draenei had to lean down slightly to engulf her hand in his much larger blue one. "I am Vorthaal. Honored to make the acquaintance."

He turned his disconcertingly bright gaze to Callista, and she hoped her smile didn't look as forced as it felt. "Callista Dunhaven," she said, extending her hand because courtesy left her little choice.

He closed his hand around hers with surprising gentleness, shaking it once carefully before releasing her. "You are frightened," he said, tilting his head so the rings on the tendrils at his neck clinked against his breastplate.

"What? Of course not," she said, discomfited but laughing easily. "Just a little seasick." It wasn't really a lie, she told herself, because she wasn't really frightened of him. Just a little…unnerved.

"I have seen this look before," he said, studying her with what she might almost believe was compassion on his strange features. "You have known man'ari eredar."

Man'ari…the word existed in Eredun, too, though Callista suspected the connotations were different. "Yes, once," she said cautiously, because she couldn't see a reason to lie.

Wynda's head snapped around, mingled curiosity and surprise in her green eyes as Vorthaal's expression darkened.

"They were our kin once, but no longer," he rumbled, staring past her into some old memory. "Now they are so vile even the Light will not show them mercy." Some of the ferocity bled from him then, and he smiled, gentle once more. "But you are still here, and the man'ari is not, and this is good, yes?"

"Yes, this is good," Callista said, answering smile more genuine this time. The look of him still set all her nerves on edge, but if she pushed that aside he seemed to be a decent creature. Far kinder than she thought she'd have been, if she'd been chased across the worlds for millennia by her own demonic brethren.

"I am pleased to have met both of you," he said graciously.

"Aye, and so are we," Wynda replied. Her smile became somewhat wry as the deck heaved again. "I hope we're all just as pleased after a week stuck together on this floating ale cask."

Vorthaal looked just as unbalanced as the rest of them by the rolling of the ship, but unlike Callista and Wynda he could easily extend his arms to brace himself against both walls. "I admit I am finding the journey so far somewhat…disconcerting. The Exodar was a ship, but it did not sail on water and it did not…move…so."

"According to that green piece of work, we'll all get used to it," Wynda said, sounding skeptical as she wedged herself against a garishly-painted doorway.

"Ah, you mean the goblin woman," Vorthaal said, puzzlement flickering briefly over his face before it settled back into what Callista was beginning to think of as his usual good-natured look. "Yes, your world contains many fascinating creatures." His large blue brow lowered in a frown. "Though some are more strange than others. Why does she keep calling me a water fowl?"

Callista wrinkled her nose for a moment in confusion, then laughed. She supposed the goblin's insistence on calling all her passengers "duckie" could be mystifying to someone with a more formal grasp of Common. Actually, the warlock was a native speaker and still found it somewhat mystifying herself. "She calls us all that. I think she's just trying to be friendly."

"Deranged is more like it, if you ask me," Wynda muttered.

Vorthaal looked abashed, thick tail sweeping the air. "Then I fear I owe her apologies. Your people usually call each other animals as insults, yes? I am afraid I may have been…cold. She left in a hurry."

Wynda looked as though she was trying to choke back a laugh. "Aye, you may have startled her a bit."

"Then I should go make amends. I will see you both again soon, I am sure."

Callista and Wynda nodded politely, then pressed themselves back against the corridor wall as Vorthaal squeezed past them.

"She's probably wedged herself in the smallest corner of the bilge by now," Callista said under her breath, more amused than anything, as they climbed the stairs back up into the crisp morning air.

"Can't say I blame her," Wynda said in the same tone as she clomped up the steps behind her. "The lad's built like a brace of siege engines."

That was one way of putting it. The last creature Callista had known who'd looked so physically suited to combat had been most decidedly a demon.

She squinted as she emerged from the dim below decks into the sunlight. The breeze smelled of salt and ship's tar, and carried the sound of flapping canvas and the cries of the few seabirds that had followed them out this far from shore. Other passengers strolled along the deck watching the dolphins that frolicked in their foam-split wake, while sailors hollered cheerfully at each other and the people below from perches in the rigging.

"There's the lads," Wynda said, nudging her in the hip with her elbow.

Nathanial stood with his forearms on the rail, staring out into the hazy blue distance, while Ander lay on his back near his feet, splayed out with one arm thrown over his eyes. At least he looked less green than he had earlier.

Wynda called a greeting, and Callista followed at her heels. Some of her queasiness had dissipated in the stiff breeze, and her annoyance at being coerced into this venture warred with the exhilaration she always felt at the beginning of a journey. She still had no intention of following this Argent Dawn mission into Felwood, but a sea voyage as far as Auberdine might not be unpleasant.

Of course, that didn't mean, she thought, stepping over one of Ander's outstretched limbs to join Wynda and Nathanial at the rail, that Sir Aren (wherever he'd gotten to) was in any way off the hook he'd stuck himself on.

* * *

Happily oblivious to Callista's brooding, the man in question sat behind the heavy oak desk in his quarters (bolted to the deck, like all the rest of the furniture aboard), thumbing through the thick stack of parchment before him. Equipment requisitions, wages for his soldiers, correspondences from his superiors…all requiring his attention, until he regarded the daily delivery of mail with a resigned kind of foreboding. At least now that they were at sea, any further paperwork would have to await his arrival at Auberdine. (Assuming, of course, that nothing urgent enough to warrant teleportation cropped up.)

Dipping his quill into the inkwell nailed to the corner of the desk, he signed his name at the bottom of the first form and set it carefully aside so as not to smear it. The item beneath it was a report on Scourge activity in the Alterac foothills. They weren't going anywhere near Alterac; he skipped it to read later.

Licking his fingertip, he continued to page gamely through the stack. Only another twenty or so to go...

When the sharp knock sounded at his door, he welcomed the interruption. Pushing aside news of a renewed Legion assault near Honor Hold, he leaned back and stretched, stealing a glance at the foam-laced waves outside the portholes. "Come in," he said, straightening and rearranging himself into a more professional position with his hands folded on his desk.

The heavy door swung open, and a slim woman clad in a white tunic, sheathed dagger dangling from the leather belt at her waist, pushed into the room. She pressed the door closed so the movement of the ship wouldn't slam it, then turned to face him just as Aren recognized her as the woman who'd given him such a venomous look on the piers earlier. She wasn't glaring now, though the flintily appraising expression in her grey eyes was hardly friendlier.

"Can I help you?" he asked, smiling a little in hopes of thawing her gaze.

On later reflection, he wasn't sure what he'd expected her to say (some kind of greeting would probably have been traditional), but what came out of her mouth next most definitely wasn't it.

"I don't like being blackmailed," she said, in a conversational tone completely at odds with the frigid look she continued to skewer him with.

Blackmailed? Aren's brow creased as he tried to figure out if she'd really said what he thought she just did, and if so, why she was saying it to him. This was so far outside what he'd imagined as the realm of possible introductions that for a moment he just stared at her. "Excuse me?" he managed finally.

"Oh, don't look at me that way," she said irritably, stalking closer to his desk (the effect ruined only a little when she steadied herself as a larger than usual swell lifted them). "How in the Nether did you think this would turn out?"

"How what would turn out, soldier?" Aren asked, a hint of annoyance mingling with his confusion as he sat up more stiffly in his chair. Clearly there was some kind of misunderstanding here, but whatever grievance this woman thought she had, he was still her commander and would be treated as such. Especially because he hadn't even done…whatever it was.

"I think your last word nailed it," she said, narrowing her eyes as she crossed her arms deliberately at him from the other side of his desk.

The effect shouldn't have been intimidating – the woman wasn't very physically imposing, even when he had to tilt his head up to meet her gaze – but she had the mages' trick of looking at him like he might be a pile of horse dung in another few heartbeats.

"What?" he asked, more bewildered than ever and beginning to get angry now. He leaned forward a little over his scattered letters, resisting an urge to stand up to put himself on more equal footing with her. "Miss Dunhaven," he said in a carefully measured tone. "I understand that you're angry, but I can't possibly help you if don't explain what in Light's merciful name you're talking about."

That must finally have registered, because as he finished speaking the woman's expression shifted through an odd transformation: from scathing contempt to surprised realization to something just a little too scornful to be pity. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"No," Aren said, highly irked but relieved to finally be getting somewhere, "I don't." He waved a hand at the chair bolted to the floor next to her. "Now would you please sit down and explain yourself. Who's blackmailing you?"

"You are," she said infuriatingly, settling into the chair. Before he could berate her for being deliberately obscure (as well as insulting), some of her arrogance seemed to fade. She squeezed her eyes shut and held them that way a moment before opening them again and meeting his gaze frankly. "I'm not a mercenary. I didn't volunteer to be in your company, and I don't know anything about where you're going or why. An assassin threatened me until I promised to meet you at the docks."

"I – That's insane," Aren blurted, angrily shocked into speaking more harshly than he meant. "The Argent Dawn would never – "

"Maybe not, but someone did," she interrupted irritably. A few strands of blonde hair fell into her face as she cocked her head, and she brushed them away with quick fingers. "Who's backing this trip? Financially."

Aren wasn't sure. He was a soldier, and didn't delve that far into administrative matters. Even if he did, he wasn't about to be interrogated in his own quarters by a woman he'd never spoken to before. "I don't know. Just the Dawn," he said shortly.

She laughed dryly. "Somehow I doubt that." Her grey-eyed gaze was sharp as she focused it on his face, and he got the impression she was watching to see if he flinched. "You have no idea why anyone would be interested in your missing settlement? No rumors of lost fortunes, no possible heirs suddenly turned up in the House of Nobles?"

Nettled by her close inspection, Aren opened his mouth to snap a confirmation, then closed it abruptly again as the sudden veering of his own thoughts startled him.

He'd been certain that the woman was terribly mistaken, if not flat-out lying – this was a simple rescue mission, or, at very worst, a search for final confirmation that all the settlers of Jorn's Rest were dead. That was how his orders had painted this journey, and he had no reason to doubt that.

But…the village mage had kept a chronicle. He'd sent a copy back in the last shipment of mail to reach Stormwind, and he'd looked at it as part of his briefing. In one of the last entries, he'd mentioned that they'd found something of interest in the caves above the town and had begun a sort of mining project to excavate it. It was only a short note, and didn't even mention what it was that they'd found – it could've been a vein of ore, or some Night Elven ruin – but the woman's mention of lost fortunes had reminded him of it.

Not that, even if it meant anything (which he doubted), it made the idea of the Dawn being involved in anything like what she was accusing them of any less ridiculous.

"What? No!" Aren said, narrowing his eyes and hoping the Light would forgive him for the lie.

She cocked her head again, as though trying to decide if he was actually serious, then gave a sardonic snort. She looked like she was going to speak, then seemed to change her mind and said something else instead. "I don't mean to go with you past Auberdine, as I'm sure you can understand."

For a moment Aren was silent, gazing at the cracked wax seal of one of his letters as he tried to marshal his tangled thoughts into some kind of conclusion. "No, I'd imagine you wouldn't," he said finally, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. What else was there to say? He needed space to sort all of this out, and then…well, he didn't know what then. "You'll be missed, of course, but I won't have anyone forced to be here against their will."

It was a shame; she'd be difficult to replace. Her background said she was a former Academy mage, and those were scarce enough in Stormwind, let alone in a Night Elven city. They might have no choice but to go on without a warlock after all.

Her chair creaked as she shifted in it, and he glanced up in time to see some of the hostility bleed from her as she laid her sleeve on the desk near his papers. Silver-embroidered runes glimmered at its cuff – better enchantments than a mercenary who made the sort of wages this journey offered could've afforded. "Someone's after something," she said, voice less unkind than he might have expected. "And if you don't know what it is, then they're using you, too."

That had the uncomfortable ring of truth to it, but he still couldn't bring himself to believe she was right. "I can't imagine there's really some grand conspiracy going on here," Aren said with less conviction than he would've liked.

"Imagine whatever you want." She stood, resting her hands on the carved back of the chair as she watched him. "But if I were you, I'd be very sure what I was looking for before I went chasing it through Felwood."

More unpleasantly practical advice. On top of the blow she'd delivered by dropping her news so bluntly on him, Aren wasn't sure he was grateful for it. He stood as well, shaking his head. "Miss Dunhaven."

"Callista's fine," she said, with a twitch of her lip he might have taken for apologetic on someone less prickly. Her features, he noticed now, were actually attractive, though they seemed perpetually set in a half-amused look that he wasn't sure he appreciated. It improved when she wasn't staring at him like he was an idiot.

"Callista, then. I'd be grateful if you didn't share what you've told me with anyone else. I don't want rumors getting out of hand before I find out the truth of things."

She nodded. "I assumed as much. I haven't said anything, and don't intend to."

"Good. Thank you." He hesitated a moment, then offered her his hand across the desk. "I'm sorry…if we've somehow caused you trouble."

One side of her mouth lifted wryly at that. "Oh, I suspect I was probably in trouble anyway," she said, taking his hand and shaking it briefly. "You're just the newest manifestation."

He gave a wan smile, watching as she let herself out and shut the door quietly behind her. Feeling like he'd just suffered the conversational equivalent of a sucker punch, he sat back down, sweeping his unread parchment to one side and squeezing his eyes shut.

* * *

Callista leaned her back against the door after she'd closed it, letting out a long breath. Obviously she'd been around fiends (demonic and otherwise) for far too long. She'd entered that room expecting to find malicious intent, or at least indifference elevated so far as to be indistinguishable from it, and instead all she'd found was well-meaning ignorance.

How annoying.

That had been at least partly why she'd been so horrible to the poor man in the beginning – malice she could deal with, provided it was at least marginally intelligent; ignorance couldn't help her at all.

She walked down the corridor a bit, trailing her fingers along the smooth wooden planks of the wall and the raised molding that edged the doorways as much out of thoughtfulness as to help her balance. She didn't believe for a moment that Sir Aren didn't know more than what he'd told her (the man was a terrible liar, clearly he had some idea why outside parties might be interested in this voyage) but she was sure he was innocent so far as her involvement was concerned. No one could fake the look of dumbstruck affront he'd worn when she'd accused the Argent Dawn of blackmail.

She snorted slightly at the memory.

Once she'd gotten over her irritation at finding a fellow pawn instead of a gimlet-eyed schemer, she'd actually begun to feel sorry for him, and the advice she'd given was genuine. Felwood was treacherous enough without worrying about the intent of your own allies. Even the best-planned sorties had a way of falling apart there.

Steadier on her feet now, she took the stairs to the main deck two at a time with a vague intention of finding someone to ask where the galley was. She'd never known a paladin with a head for intrigue, and it looked like poor Sir Aren and his cohort were shaping up to be no different. If they had any sense, they'd realize they were in over their heads and sail this ship straight back to Stormwind, but, being paladins, they probably had some ridiculous notion of duty holding them all to the (probably suicidal) course. It was almost enough to stir a pang of guilt in her for planning to abandon them all at Auberdine…

…but they'd made their choices, and Callista refused to end up sorry for hers.


	5. Collision

A/N: Happy new years and hope everyone enjoyed the holidays!

* * *

Two days out of port, the fog crept in.

Callista sat at the end of the galley table nearest the porthole, picking at the crumbs of her breakfast and watching pearly skeins of mist drift and fray behind the glass. She'd been up on deck earlier (though not for very long; the fog was cold and clammy as drowned fingers and its touch made her shudder), and even the lantern dangling from the end of the bowsprit hadn't been visible as anything more than a damp smear of light. Hardly any wonder the ship had slowed. If the weather didn't clear, it could add days to their journey, but at least the new cautious pace had done wonders for Ander's seasickness. He sat two places down and across from Callista, wolfing down biscuits and arguing with his brother.

"I'm telling you," he said around a mouthful of crumbs, "there are _too_!"

"Are too what?" asked Callista, who had lost the thread of the conversation but become curious when the shouting started.

Ander paused his predatory eyeing of the last biscuit long enough to look at her. "Are too sharks in the canals."

"The _Stormwind_ canals?" she asked, wrinkling her nose skeptically.

"See? I told you," Nathanial said, taking her unconvinced expression as evidence. "They're too small! And besides, have you seen that water? They'd probably all be poisoned."

"Or mutate," Ander said, looking disgruntled as Wynda took advantage of his distraction to swipe the last biscuit. "Into canal sharks."

Wynda laughed, breaking her spoils in half and slathering each fluffy white side with butter. "Unless they've all been magicked into catfish fry, I think someone's been having you on, lad."

"Well, you never know what kind of potions the Academy's been dumping in there…" Callista said, straight-faced. She amused herself for a moment by imagining Tun's look of indignation if he ever heard her slandering the mages that way.

"Exactly," Ander said, gazing speculatively at the steaming plate of biscuits halfway down the table between Vorthaal and Luciel. "Besides, Willie Lightforge said he saw one. The assassins' guilds use them to dispose of the bodies." He paused, brow creasing. "Or was it the warlock cabal? The assassins' guilds may have _been_ the warlock cabal, he was a bit vague on that…"

Wynda snorted. "Is he sure the sharks were in the canal and not the bottom of his flagon?"

"The warlock cabal?" Callista asked, trying and failing to keep her mouth from twitching. Rumors about a powerful Legion-aligned secret society of warlocks never quite seemed to die in Stormwind, especially when times were troubled, and she always found the juxtaposition of that image with the petty, squabbling bunch in the basement of The Slaughtered Lamb to be funny. If the fishwives and tavernkeeps ever learned the truth about their sinister conspirators, they'd all be run out of town with howls of laughter instead of pitchforks.

"Yes, you know," Ander said, waving his butter knife vaguely. "Demonic rituals, human sacrifice, replacing heads of the nobility with shape-shifted demons…" He paused and grinned rakishly at her (she noticed both halves of his face were shaved evenly today). "What's the matter, they didn't invite you?"

She snickered, catching her water glass as a sudden roll of the ship unbalanced it. "Evidently not. Should I be offended?"

"Well, I guess it makes more sense than canal sharks," Nathanial said with a fond roll of his eyes.

"Not by much," Callista disagreed, prodding idly at a bead of liquid on the table's polished surface. "Oh, there are some who try to court the Legion, but they're more like street thugs than a real conspiracy. They're not even very good arcanists – otherwise they'd be enslaving demons instead of begging them for favors."

"You've met Legion sympathizers?" Ander asked, gazing at her with a decent man's morbid curiosity about those who chose to be wicked. "What were they thinking?"

Callista had actually met a lot worse than sympathizers, but she wasn't about to admit that. She'd also run into the tamer sort of traitor in Stormwind from time to time, though it was sometimes difficult to tell the blustering bullies from the genuine article. Every now and then, however, someone would encounter an otherwise poor warlock who'd gotten hold of an artifact far beyond his own power, and those probably did have a Legion connection somewhere. One of them had actually accosted her a few years ago when she'd been on her way to Elwynn with a cartload of alchemical supplies from her father's shop. Jhormug had chased the poor fool halfway to Duskwood while Callista convulsed with laughter on the seat, and it was probably good he'd kept running after he'd thrown his amulet back at the pursuing demon, because her control had been much less sure in those days. She liked to think the incident had taught the aspiring thief a lesson, but probably he'd just gone back for a better amulet.

"They _weren't_ thinking. Nothing but foolish arrogance." Luciel answered from the other end of the table before Callista had a chance to speak. The glow in her silver eyes was harder than usual, and one of her long ears twitched disdainfully. Since their first meeting on the docks, she and Callista had ignored each other coldly but cordially – which had suited the warlock fine – but evidently their conversation was heading down a path she couldn't suffer in silence.

Callista shrugged. "Or desperation or ambition or flat-out malice." Her mouth twisted wryly. "It's only foolish if they regret their half of the bargain."

"Aye, but since demons never keep theirs, I daresay most of them wind up fools," Wynda said, flicking her green eyes casually between Callista and Luciel as though trying to determine if one of them was going to escalate the argument.

"This is true," Vorthaal said. He perched gingerly on the bench across from the night elf, which, though built of sturdy oak, still groaned a little under his weight. "There is no honor left in man'ari, and there can be no bartering without trust, yes?"

Callista cocked her head. That was true, as far as it went – there was no honor in demons. But there was cold logic and malicious intelligence, at least in some of them, enough to allow a small amount of honesty in service to a greater mischief. "If every promise the Legion ever made was lies, they'd run out of mortal followers very quickly."

Luciel smiled humorlessly, the movement disturbing the small dark tattoos like leopard spots that patterned her cheeks. "Only if you believe the mortal races will ever run out of fools."

Something about that reply raised Callista's hackles – probably it was the way she referred to the "the mortal races" as though her own people were anything better. Callista, who was up on her demon lore, disagreed. "Yes, well, maybe if _we_ ripped the world in half we could flush out all of ours, too."

Luciel's silvery eyes tightened at the corners, and Ander looked back and forth between the two women as though expecting (and perhaps hoping for) a fight. "My people learned from our folly, and if yours are half as wise as you believe then they will as well, without repeating it."

"Who said anything about wisdom?" Callista asked, getting an unwholesome sense of satisfaction out of the confrontation. "My argument was that we're _all_ – "

"Alright, lass, we take your point," Wynda interrupted evenly. She'd obviously decided that the warlock had no interest in smoothing things over (quite the opposite, in fact), and it was best to separate the two before things got even nastier. "I'm going up top to see if Sir Aren could use any help. Care to lend me a hand?"

It was clear what she was doing, but since they were all stuck on this ship together for at least another week or two, Callista grudgingly allowed that it might not be a bad idea to follow her. Though Sir Aren probably wouldn't appreciate it much – she hadn't seen him since their discussion in his quarters, and she suspected he was avoiding her. Not that she really blamed him. "Alright. I'll bite."

Wynda sighed. "You're a piece of work, and no mistake," she muttered.

Callista collected her glass and plate and dropped them in the basket set aside for that purpose as she followed Wynda up the stairs to the main deck, pulling the hood of her cloak over her hair.

"I wouldn't bait Luciel, lass," Wynda remarked quietly as they climbed. "She was there at Hyjal, and if you don't think she's earned your tolerance for that then consider how fast she could get an arrow through your eye if you test her."

Callista was used to being scolded (it was more or less the basis of her friendship with Tun, after all), but this time she didn't think she deserved it. Well, not much, anyway. "The elves aren't the only people to ever fight demons. And I don't like being talked down at."

Wynda snorted, lifting her own hood as they left the shelter of the stairwell and walked into the murky fog. Her cloak beaded almost instantly with little pearls of moisture. "Maybe if you'd been talking about fighting them instead of bargaining with them you wouldn't have gotten her back up."

"I'll remember not to have any more theoretical arguments in front of people who can't separate conversation from reality, then," she said irritably. The fact that, for her, the discussion hadn't really been theoretical at all was irrelevant. No one else knew that, and it wasn't a detail she intended to share.

"Ach, Light save you both," Wynda said as she threw her hands up wearily.

Memories stirred by the argument, Callista's mind travelled back to the incident in question as she trudged through the clinging mist, the sound of their boots on the planks echoing strangely. It wasn't as though she could help what others (demons or not) chose to offer her. And besides, she'd done the sensible, _right_ thing in the end.

Well, sort of, anyway.

* * *

"_If that's a promise, I'll believe it even less," she'd said._

_The liquid trilling of night birds mingled with the murmur of the bay around the dock they stood on. Fireflies glimmered beneath the jungle eaves, and moonlight glinted silver off the rippling seawater and the filigree on Nerothos' armor alike. Callista was drunk; everyone in Booty Bay was probably drunk, except the dreadlord who stood before her, leathery wings half-spread and eyes burning like twin chips of felfire in the dark._

_Nerothos didn't answer her challenge in words. Instead he tightened his clawed hand around her wrist (her breath hissed through her teeth at the shadowy burn of fel magic against her pulse, and alarm had little to do with it) and tilted his head to watch with an edged smile as her gaze was drawn to the dark blood that dripped slowly from his other palm. Patient as always – but patience was a virtue cheaply come by, for an immortal._

_It was the same quality he offered her…for a price. Not so cheap after all, then. She watched the blood pooling in his hand, moonlight or some unnatural inner power lending it a faint greenish sheen, and weighed her mortal life against the chance to live forever._

_Time in exchange for freedom…but Callista was still young, even by the standards of her own short-lived people, and more time hadn't yet become so appealing that she'd forfeit everything else she had._

_She tried to twist her hand as she mused, studying the contrast of his sharp black claws against her skin, but he held her fast with his thumb pressed into her palm. _

"_What in the Twisting Nether did you think I'd say to this?" she asked, looking up at him with vague irritation. (A quarter bottle of liquor earlier it probably would've been more than vague, but she'd always been a lazy drunk.) "The answer is no, by the way."_

_Nerothos clucked his tongue at her in mock reproach, stretching his wide black wings idly. "How tiresomely predictable."_

_She snorted scornfully at that. "Oh, really now. Why would you waste your time here if you knew I'd tell you to go to hell?" He hadn't let go of her wrist (probably because he'd mistaken her earlier inspection for an escape attempt and was holding on out of wicked perversity), but since he wasn't hurting her she decided she didn't care. Any real effort to get away would involve felfire (or something worse), and he hadn't provoked her quite that far. Yet._

_Green flame burst suddenly around his other hand, dazzling her eyes after so long in the dark, and she wrinkled her nose as the fire devoured the blood cupped in his palm. Burning demon blood smelled terrible, but she'd learned that a long time ago. The claw marks he'd scored in his own skin had already healed. "Come now, that is hardly what you said," he replied, pointed teeth white in his sardonic smile._

"_It isn't?" she said, showing her own teeth in a mirroring expression. "Terrible oversight. I'd say it now, but I'd hate to aggravate your tediously predictable existence..."_

"_That is hardly what _I _said."_

_Callista narrowed her eyes, struck by the sudden notion that they weren't having the same conversation at all. She'd begun to regret her decision to set her bottle of rum down by her feet; with her hand pinned that way she couldn't reach it, and the demon seemed very unlikely to let her go anytime soon. Doubly unlikely if he knew what she wanted to be let go for. Well, maybe they could compromise. She tipped her chin down at the brown glass bottle. "What do I have to say to get you to hand me that?"_

_Nerothos cocked his horned head, seeming to consider that for a moment, then dismissed the question with a soft snarl._

_The sound was inhuman enough that it penetrated her pleasant haze of alcohol (she'd actually drunk quite a lot before putting the bottle down) and caused her a brief and very belated shiver of alarm. Yes, this was Nerothos, and yes, he'd been even more than usually tolerant (which alone should've made her suspicious), but he was still a dreadlord, a Legion demon, and she was probably more than drunk enough already._

_He must've sensed her sudden uncertainty because he laughed, voice a velvety purr completely at odds with the way his wings flared subtly, capitalizing on his physical edge. "Consider my offer to be…open-ended. But remember on whose side mortality lays, warlock. Your position can only become more untenable with time – and a bargain's terms never improved with disadvantage." _

_It was an interesting blend of persuasion and intimidation…but she was too floored by his words to notice the deepened shadows as his wings curled around her. She eyed him sideways, torn between amazement, irritation and disbelief, before she decided that yes, he was actually serious – he really _did_ believe she'd come crawling back to Jaedenar one day. Unholy Twisting Nether, he was the most arrogant creature alive. The idea was so ridiculous that she forgot her earlier hesitation and laughed. "Oh, demon," she said, looking up at him with mixed amusement and scorn. "They'll be building cathedrals on Argus first."_

"_Will they?" He smiled, the viciously amused one he wore when he thought he'd cornered something. "That's a poor limitation, warlock – unless you mean to accept."_

_The arm he held was beginning to tire – Nerothos was a great deal larger than she was, and the height he'd chosen was uncomfortable. Probably on purpose, the wretched creature. But whoever flinched first lost, of course, so she simply took a half step nearer to shift the angle and arranged her shoulders more agreeably. "You mean they've built them there already? Now that seems out of character…"_

"_Hardly." He pulled her wrist almost imperceptibly upward, renewing the burn in her fatigued muscles – she suspected he'd done this before, miserable fiend. He smiled, though whether at his next words or her irritation she couldn't be sure. "Many powers demand monuments of their thralls…and your Light is the _least_ of them." _

_Before she could decide if this finally warranted setting his hand on fire, the pressure on her wrist increased and then vanished – he released her arm and flickered into invisibility in the same instant, nothing but black jungle and a star-swept ribbon of beach in his place._

_Callista blinked, nonplussed. Well, that was…abrupt. Disgruntled by the fact he'd gotten the last word after all, she sat down on the weathered planks of the dock next to her rum bottle and dangled a foot into the warm bay. Her forearm itched; she scratched absently at it, felt liquid smear beneath her fingers and glanced down at it in surprise. _

_Blood oozed slowly from three long gouges in the back of her wrist. As soon as she noticed them they began to sting. Twisting Nether, the demon's claws were so sharp she hadn't even felt him do that._

_Narrowing her eyes and cursing in Jaedenar's general direction, she leaned over the moon-drenched water to look for fish. Or turtles or crabs or whatever other hapless creature she might steal the life from to mend herself. Not that the scratches were serious, or even that they hurt – but they were unmistakably claw marks, and she didn't relish the idea of explaining them to her friends in the morning._

_The water was so pristine she could see the seaweed that rippled at the bottom, obscured only by gentle phosphorescence where her foot disturbed it, and it didn't take long to discover that nothing alive stirred anywhere. _

_Nothing animal, anyway…_

_A soft snore interrupted the night sounds of the shore, and she glanced over at the dozing man still mired in Nerothos' sleep spell. For a moment she thought about it, then rolled her eyes at her own nagging conscience. The man had already been knocked out by a dreadlord, he probably didn't deserve injury on top of insult. Maybe she could blame the scratches on dock splinters._

_Hissing at the burn, she dipped her bleeding arm into the seawater with ill-tempered resignation. If there was any justice in the world, the demon would fly into a nest of wyverns._

On the mist-shrouded deck of _The Fortitude_, Callista wrinkled her nose in annoyance at the memory and rubbed at the back of her wrist. Alright, so perhaps her refusal hadn't been completely ironclad. But at least she hadn't said _yes_.

* * *

Aren paced slowly along the deserted deck, each creak of a wooden spar and whisper of canvas made loud and hollow by the mist. Damp clung to everything, weighing down the silver and black cloak draped over his shoulders.

Captain Verner said fogs like this had always been common along the coast of old Lordaeron they now sailed, but Aren wasn't sure he believed it. There was an oily heaviness to its touch that had nothing to do with moisture, as though the cursed and tormented land to their east had exhaled, loosing its decayed breath across the waves. He could see why all the passengers (and even most of the ship's crew) remained below decks and out of the way of it.

He would be there himself, if he hadn't felt such a need to pace. The walls of his quarters had seemed too close this morning, and the quiet groan of the wood against the fathomless dark water they sailed had driven him up into the fog.

Now he was regretting it. He rested his ungauntleted hands against the starboard rail, smearing beads of cold moisture, and stared out into the milky whorls of mist.

Lordaeron was out there somewhere. Brill, Stratholme, Tarren Mill, Andorhal – names that had once marked cities, then battles, then restless charnel houses. Images came with the names – a ragged train of refugees, dragging a wake of trampled possessions and the crumpled bodies of those who had faltered for the last time (to burn them would have been merciful, but there was little enough mercy left even for the living); a blue and white banner, crushed into blood and ichor-streaked mud; shattered crates of grain from which corruption rose like rotted smoke. Worst of all were the faces – frightened and confused in the beginning, then, towards the end and far more terribly, slack with hopelessness.

Aren shook his head sharply, banishing his thoughts. He shouldn't have come up here. This fog reeked of death, and all of the memories it stirred were unkind. The present was murky enough without disturbing old ghosts.

Feminine voices echoed eerily through the mist, reminding him of the source of that murkiness. Wynda approached with Callista in tow; he frowned resignedly as he turned to face the sound of their footsteps. Mulling over the warlock's words had bled the shock from them but not the uncertainty, and even though he knew another conversation with her might help him sort things out he'd been reluctant to initiate it. He'd met personalities like hers before, and not just in other warlocks. She had the self-possessed arrogance of anyone whose power was obtained through raw force of will, and conflicts with such people were always unpleasant for anyone who didn't enjoy pitched arguments. Aren was one such, and he hadn't meant to speak with her again until he was sure what he wanted from the conversation.

He still wasn't sure, but he'd never been one to flinch in the face of potential discomfort and he didn't now.

"Muradin's beard, lad, you picked an awful day for a stroll," Wynda said as the mist parted to reveal her solid form. Her red braids looked particularly vibrant against the grey weather.

"Couldn't sit still," Aren said with a halfhearted shrug. "My quarters were even drearier."

"Unless they moved the officers' quarters to the brig, I'm not sure I believe that," Callista said, cocking an eye at the chill mist creeping over the rail.

Aren relaxed slightly at this opening remark. Based on her previous behavior, he'd expected, at best, barely-veiled contempt, but if she was willing to look past their last encounter then so was he. "Requisition papers," he said, offering a slight smile. "The fog doesn't require signatures in triplicate."

"Don't give those ink-nosed scribes ideas, lad," Wynda grumbled good-naturedly.

The dwarf had never been fond of the Stormwind bureaucracy, and she'd ranted to him on several occasions about how matters that would've been settled over a round of beer in Ironforge seemed to require half the officer corps and a forest's worth of parchment in the human city. Aren didn't think it was quite that bad, but he'd never much liked official paperwork either. Another reason it was good to be leaving the city behind, even with the recent…complications.

"What brings you two out in this?" he asked, raising a brow at the way they both seemed cloaked and hooded to avoid any touch of the mist.

The warlock flicked a wry sideways glance at Wynda, as though interested to see how she'd answer.

"Things were getting a wee bit uncomfortable inside for us, too," Wynda said dryly.

"_I_ felt fine," Callista said with a devilish look. Her cloak was grey, only a few shades darker than the fog that shrouded them, and produced the unnerving illusion of her figure blurring wraith-like at the edges.

Wynda rolled her eyes tolerantly. "I guess if you didn't like playing with fire, you wouldn't be what you are, would you, lass?"

"Probably not," Callista agreed.

Aren glanced doubtfully between the two women, trying to decide if he wanted elaboration on this exchange or if he was happier letting it be. Clearly the warlock had caused some kind of mischief…but Wynda was extremely capable and seemed to have the situation well in hand.

Before he could choose his next words, he found himself jarred to his knees by a concussion that shuddered through the planks beneath him, wrenching a protesting groan from the wood.

"Twisting Nether!" Callista swore from where she now rested on her (mercifully fabric-cushioned) elbows.

A babble of voices rose in hollow echoes from the other side of the ship, though the ghostly curtains of fog hid whatever had agitated them.

"We've hit something," Wynda said grimly. She climbed to her feet, smoothing her cloak back down over the soldier's leathers she never seemed to remove.

"Maybe we've just run aground," Aren said, though he realized it couldn't be true even as he said it. The ship rolled gently with the swells as he pulled himself up using the rail; whatever had caused the crash, they were still floating free.

Callista gazed in the direction of the sounds as she rubbed gingerly at one of her sore elbows. "Whatever it is, better hope it hasn't holed us. There's nothing to our east but plague."

An unpleasant thought (the warlock seemed to have a bottomless reservoir of them), but if it was true there was little they could do about it. Aren shook his head. "If we've hit another ship there might be wounded. Follow me, both of you."

White streamers of mist morphed and twisted around him as he set off at a run, not waiting to hear their acknowledgement. Individual voices rose over the commotion as he approached – one was the stentorian bellow of Captain Verner issuing orders to come away from the side, but far too many of the rest were simply screams.

A low hiss and a muttered prayer issued from behind him as a capricious thinning of the fog revealed what they'd struck. Masts like black spears towered overhead, tattered sails hanging limply from them. They had indeed hit another vessel, but not a sleek clipper like _The Fortitude; _this ship was a huge round-sided cargo hauler, and her dark bulkhead reared several feet over their rail.

Most of the more curious passengers had already been herded back from the point of impact (luckily neither ship had been sailing very fast across the breezeless sea, and there appeared to be little damage to either) while a handful of sailors pushed frantically at the strange vessel's side with long poles in an effort to shove away. Several of their fellows stood close behind, but instead of poles they brandished swords.

This was odd, but Aren was distracted from thinking on it further as he noticed the blood on the deck. Two lacerated bodies, one in the uniform of their own crew, lay tumbled close to each other. Crushed somehow in the collision, Aren guessed. It was evident from the large pool of blood soaking into the planks around them and the way the sailors gave them a wide berth that both were already past mortal help. "Is anyone hurt?" he cried, scanning the stunned-looking passengers for wounds.

"Paladin!"

He turned at Captain Verner's distinctive growl. A long scar puckered his face from temple to chin, drawing his mouth on that side up into a permanent leer. "Arm yourself and get your soldiers up here! Clear anyone who can't fight into the hold."

The captain's words and dire tone jolted him. Thrust from thoughts of concern, his mind locked into the clear, cold place that allowed him to command others while the world fell to blood and pieces around him. "Arm ourselves against what?" he asked tersely.

"Ship's full of corpses," Verner snapped, eyes pinned to the misty bulkhead looming above them, "except they aren't dead. Picker didn't chew his own face off."

Aren's eyes flicked involuntarily back to the two bodies. Upon closer inspection, one had been torn almost to shreds, gore hanging in ragged strings from what he had thought were splinter but now realized were claw marks, while the other's head dangled from its neck by a single strip of gristle. This one's flesh had already turned sickly grey, and the exposed bones at its joints gave it the look of a corpse long dead.

Bile rose in the back of his throat. "Wynda, get the others."

"Right away," she said, already shouldering her way through the crowd between her and the stairwell. "Below with you if you can't wield a blade!" she roared.

It didn't look like clearing the deck would be a problem; most of the gawkers had begun pushing to flee the moment they realized what lurked aboard the other ship. Unfortunately, the dense crowd packed into the forecastle stairs would keep the rest of Aren's company from joining them quickly.

A jumble of rotted faces appeared over the rail of the other ship and triggered a wave of screams from those struggling to escape. Too mindless to climb the barrier, the undead things simply battered through it, shattering the rail under the force of their own decayed flesh and plunging over the side.

The ships were far enough apart that most simply splashed into the sea, a macabre waterfall of tumbling corpses, but the ones in front had gained enough momentum from the weight of their fellows to plummet onto _The Fortitude_'s deck. They hit the planks with wet slaps like sacks of spoiled meat.

The sailors manning the poles scattered as one of the ghouls landed nearly on top of them, lunging for the slowest with a ravaged snarl. Its fleshless claws snagged the cuff of his boot and dragged him down onto the deck.

The man's alarmed scream turned pained as the corpse began shredding the flesh and muscle of his calf, clawing its way up towards his torso. His fellows whirled on the creature (it had been a woman, once, long hair hanging lank around her exposed cheekbones and bloodied mouth) and attacked its neck and joints with swords.

Aren whipped his head around, looking futilely for something to use as a weapon. Two other undead lurched up from the deck only to be set upon by angry sailors, quickly driven down and hacked into ichor-soaked chunks. The fog was still thick, however, and he couldn't see if more had landed further down the ship, if the screams that wavered from it were only fear or something worse.

His gaze fell again on the wounded sailor near the rail, crouched over now by two of his comrades. The ghoul that had savaged him was still, finally, but one of its clawed hands had lodged deep in his thigh and they struggled to remove it. As they tugged it free, a stream of bright red blood came with it, pulsing with each beat of the man's heart.

Uttering a soft curse, Aren abandoned his search for a weapon and ran to the man's side. He dropped to his knees next to one of his companions, who was trying to staunch the bleeding with a strip of cloth but looked up suspiciously as he approached.

"I serve the Light," he said abruptly by way of explanation. The man grunted and moved aside as Aren laid his hands gently on the torn and bleeding flesh of the sailor's leg and closed his eyes, reaching out in wordless supplication. The response was immediate – a flood of warm and vast comfort, as though the universe was aware of their tiny flickers of existence and gently acknowledged its children – and he didn't need to open his eyes to sense the gilded glow sealing the wound beneath his touch.

He felt regret as the sensation receded, but when he opened his eyes the gash had healed without a scar, though his own hands remained sticky with blood. The sailor breathed shallowly, still unconscious from shock and blood loss, but he would live.

Aren climbed steadily to his feet, feeling the clean tiredness that healing always brought but already looking around for other fallen. Without a weapon, he couldn't easily destroy the undead, but at least he could mend some of what they'd harmed.

He nodded and managed a half-smile at the sailor's companions' muttered thanks. Blood smeared the misty deck in garish patches, though there were mercifully few bodies that had belonged to the living. Splashes from the hideous rain of corpses slowly faded to silence as _The Fortitude_ backed away at an angle, and whether it was because of some lingering foul awareness in the ghouls or because they'd all thrown themselves overboard he couldn't tell.

Against his own instincts, Aren's eyes traveled upward to the tattered flag that hung from the ship's highest mast. He'd already known with dreadful certainty what he would see, but the stylized L on its white field still tore fresh pain from wounds he'd thought long ago scarred-over.

A trader-ship of Lordaeron. When word of the Scourge reached the coastal towns, every able vessel had sailed, packed to the rails with frightened refugees. Ignorant in their panic, so many of them carried the very curse they fled in their own holds, escaping the plague-scarred cities only to be consumed on empty seas. If he were to open the belly of that poor ruined ship, he knew what he'd find: crates of grain, all bearing the merchant seal of Andorhal.

The slaughter on deck had failed to shake his calm, but he couldn't repress a shudder as mists curled about the frayed pennant of Lordaeron. That had been his home, once. Those were _his_ people. The ones he'd sworn to protect, now trapped in this deathless nightmare. His vows hadn't been enough to save them, and the Light…the Light paid no heed to their suffering, and now it turned its face from the tortured husks they'd become.

_The Fortitude_ swung its sails, finally gaining enough sea-room to wheel to run before the weak breeze as the ghostly ship drew back more swiftly, a raw black wound in the ragged fog. Sailors with swords drawn milled along the deck, but the battle appeared to be over. A grey-cloaked figure caught his gaze – Callista, appearing out of the mist beside the last stragglers heading below deck, keeping a watchful eye on the swirling haze at their backs. She looked paler than he'd seen her before, but otherwise unruffled. The tactical part of his mind took note of the fact she hadn't fled, while the part still reeling at the sight of the frayed Lordaeron banner was pleased to see her for other reasons.

Interpreting his stare as inquiry, she called out across the passengers between them. "The other end's clear! I don't think anyone's hurt, but the captain wants a head count to be sure."

He nodded stiffly in acknowledgement. She must've seen something suspicious in his expression because her eyes narrowed, and she spared one last glance over her shoulder before leaving her charges and approaching him.

She looked him over, unreadable gaze lingering for a moment on the blood that smeared his hands before she met his eyes again and seemed to hesitate. "Are you…"

"Can you burn it?" he asked, careful to keep the brittleness from his voice.

There was no question what 'it' was. She betrayed her surprise only by the fact she watched him for a split second longer before turning to gauge the distance to the receding vessel. It loomed a ship's-length away across the dark swells, twice the size of _The Fortitude _and wrapped in streaming mist.

"Yes," she said.

He nodded and squeezed his eyes shut briefly. "Then do it."

Once more she hesitated, though this time she searched his face as though it was a puzzle she couldn't understand and wasn't sure she trusted because of it. (And why shouldn't she be confused. Who would balk at ordering the destruction of a shipful of ravenous corpses?) "Not that it matters," she said, head still cocked in the closest to uncertainty he'd yet seen from her, "but I would've done it anyway."

Aren made no comment to that, only watched as she pushed back her hood and walked to the rail. He'd seen mages work their spells before, and if he'd expected the warlock's casting to be any different he would've been disappointed. With her back towards him, he couldn't see the arcane gestures she made with her hands, but glimmering runes coalesced at her feet and rotated slowly. Power bloomed around her – shadowy enough to make him ill, and yet perversely, sickeningly appealing to the secret flawed places in his own heart – and she hissed something in a language he couldn't understand as a coruscating pillar of flame burst up from the deck of the dead ship.

Not the red glare of magefire, but the greenish-white of demon-flame; it blazed up from around the tallest black mast, searing it to ash faster than should have been possible and then roiling outwards in a blinding emerald wave. Once it consumed the entire top deck the inferno began to spin, heat roaring at its heart as it kept pace with the bright runes whirling about the warlock's feet. There was nothing subtle about this destruction; wood and canvas so sodden with mist should never have burned, and the howl of the firestorm was the raw shriek of power.

Drawn to the sight, Aren found himself standing at the warlock's side with his knuckles clenched white around the rail, heat tightening the skin of his face. It was fitting, in a way – demons' meddling had caused the suffering of the once-people on that ship, and it was a demon's spell that was ending it, albeit one wielded by a mortal woman.

A low admiring whistle from behind let him know that the rest of his company had finally arrived.

Ander clucked his tongue at Callista with teasing disapproval, fire-glare staining his chainmail tunic a flickering green. "Leave some for me next time, oh lady not-a-mage, or at least burn them _before_ I squeeze into all this armor…"

Still channeling her spell, the warlock's only reply was an amused snort.

"That's enough, lad," Wynda said sharply. "People died here today."

Chastened, Ander didn't speak again.

The demonfire still raged, striking glittering reflections from the grey sea and making the fog shimmer like emeralds, but the dead ship had already burned down to the waterline and begun to sink.

Callista lowered her arms as the runes wreathing her boots winked out, breathing faster and face sheened with sweat from her exertions but looking satisfied with her spellwork.

Aren watched silently as the sea rushed in to fill the charred hulk, dragging it down, still burning with unnatural fury, into the deeps. The flaming chunks of wreckage that swirled lazily in its wake lit the water like green torches.

His hands tightened on the rail, short nails digging into the wood, as he saw what those torches illuminated. Not all of the living corpses had sunk or burned with the ship. Some had decayed enough that putrid gasses buoyed their bodies and now they floated among the waves, the empty ghostlight of their eyes searing into him like an accusation.

"The ones in the water, too," he said, voice still carefully controlled.

"Belay that, girl."

Both Aren and Callista turned at Captain Verner's gruff order, the warlock's head already tilting in a gesture that had more of challenge than greeting in it.

"They're a hazard to navigation," Aren said, meeting the captain's grizzled stare as frankly as he could. "It would be irresponsible to leave them as a danger to other ships."

"They might be at that," Verner agreed. He jerked his scarred chin at Callista with an unmoved expression. "But your…_mage_…there playing with fire not two fathoms off the port side is a hazard to _my_ ship. Leave it be, knight. The sharks won't like them any more than you do."

"Even scavengers won't touch Scourge," Callista pointed out, pulling her hood over her fog-darkened hair and eyeing him coolly. The slight to her abilities obviously hadn't endeared him to her, enough to overcome whatever lingering hostility she might feel for Aren. "Leave enough of them, and this stretch of ocean will be nothing but a floating plagueland."

"The…mage…speaks true," Luciel spoke up unexpectedly, musical voice cold. A three-bladed glaive with a crescent moon at its hub rested in her hand, and until she moved she seemed strangely of a piece with the mist and shadows. "Albeit for selfish reasons."

Callista wrinkled her nose at this, as though unsure whether to be pleased at the support or annoyed at the jab.

Luciel looked no happier about her own words than the captain did, elegant mouth set in a hard line, but she continued anyway. "The ghouls are a blight, and it's the charge of all creatures to defend the balance of this world. We should destroy them."

"This is not a debate. My first concern is for my ship and my crew," Verner said. He jerked a calloused thumb at the black water, corpses and burning flotsam still bobbing in it. "If you don't like it, start swimming."

Callista's lip curled, expression leaving no doubt as to who she really thought would be swimming if it came to that.

Aren didn't miss the way the hands of the surrounding sailors strayed closer to their sword hilts at their captain's words. He shook his head; this had gone far enough. He didn't like to leave those people – monsters – drifting that way, but it wasn't worth the price of a mutiny. Though he technically outranked Verner, a ship's captain's word at sea was even weightier than scripture.

"That won't be necessary," he said, casting a meaningful look first at Luciel and then Callista. "We accept your judgment, captain."

"Thank you, soldier." He turned, wiping black ichor from his twin cutlasses onto his pants and barking orders at his men. "Genner and Lightfist! Get below and check the hull for breaches. Spinner! Check names against the passenger manifest, make sure no one's wounded or gone missing. The rest of you…clear those bodies off my deck."

Tension dissipated as the sailors scurried to do their captain's bidding. Footsteps and shouts – industrious, this time, rather than terrified – echoed back through the fog as the business of resuming their journey to Auberdine got under way.

Aren returned Captain Verner's acknowledging nod as he strode off to reassure the rattled passengers who had begun poking their heads up the forecastle stairs. Though his back was to the rail, the paladin could still feel the ravenous empty-eyed gazes of the ghouls in the water boring into his back, and it took all his willpower (or was it only cowardice?) not to turn to face them.

Nathanial, clad in a chainmail shirt dull with condensation (in his hurry, he hadn't bothered with a tabard), leaned over to look at the floating bodies and grimaced. "Maybe once we've pulled away farther…"

"It won't matter," Callista said, resting her hands back on the rail before making a face and wiping her damp palms on her cloak. "There wasn't any danger anyway, and that captain is canny enough to know it. But he also knows that sailors are superstitious…"

"And demons aboard ship are bad luck," Aren finished flatly. Had he been alone he would've rubbed his temples, but he restrained himself in front of the men and women of his command. Unfair though he knew it was, he felt a surge of bitter annoyance towards the warlock. "Couldn't you have used something less…conspicuous?"

Wynda shot him a look, mixed reproach and concern, at the sharpness in his tone.

He'd expected the warlock to turn on him the same sneer she'd shown Captain Verner, and had already prepared an answer for the insubordination, but instead she merely shrugged.

"That ship was drenched in mist and seawater. Magefire is conjured by magic, but it's still natural flame. A mage who'd chosen that path might've had the skill to burn water that way…but you don't have a mage."

Her tone throughout this response had been clinical, almost bland, but the last line was edged. No, he didn't have a mage. Instead he had Callista, and the woman was no happier about the substitution than he was. She'd only done what he'd asked of her.

"Point noted," he said, which was the closest to apology he could manage without revealing more than he wanted to.

The others still watched, calmly waiting for orders, and if they noticed anything strange about this exchange it didn't show on their faces. All except Wynda, who'd known him longer than any of them and had the expression of a woman torn between laying a hand on his shoulder and scolding him for his apparent foolish surprise at a warlock wielding fel magic.

Maybe, if he'd let her, she could've found the words to shake him from his bleakness, but the need for her talents was greater elsewhere. Old guilt was nothing new to Aren, and he would push the shipful of tormented dead from his mind the same as he'd done to so many things since Stratholme burned.

"Wynda. Vorthaal." The draenei nodded respectfully at his name, the menace a creature of such size and alien appearance should've radiated undone entirely by the kindness in his ridged face. "Offer your aid to the crew taking care of the passengers. The rest of you are free to go."

"Alright, lad," Wynda said, offering him one last knowing look before swinging her gilt-inscribed hammer onto her shoulder and following Vorthaal.

Nathanial frowned suspiciously as he noticed his brother falling into step beside the large draenei. "Where are _you_ going?"

With a single black curl escaping his leather helm above one eye, Ander's face was the picture of surprised innocence. "I thought I could help. You know, hold bandages, assess wounds, comfort frightened maidens…"

Nathanial rolled his eyes, already starting after his brother. "'Comfort' isn't another word for 'proposition,' Ander."

"Maybe not in your dictionary…"

"You're my brother. We had the _same_ dictionary!"

They were still bickering as they trailed Wynda and Vorthaal down the forecastle stairs and out of sight.

Feeling the weight of controlling his expression lift now that they'd gone, Aren turned again to stare out over the water, ignoring Callista as she stood doing much the same a few paces away. They sailed parallel to the wreckage now, and though most of it had burned itself out a few green flames still flickered like beacons. The mist curled and thickened, smearing the fire into bright blurs, but he still thought he could pick out the white pinpricks of ghostlight where ghouls crested the swells. No longer able to harm, the sight of those ravaged bodies drifting with the waves, terribly, eternally aware and yet helpless, held as much pathos as horror. It would have been easier to look away, but he and all his order had failed the people those abominations still should have been, and the least he owed them was to witness.

He might've watched until the cold mist swallowed up them all, but he was suddenly disconcerted to notice that Callista had stopped looking out over the water and was now studying his face. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she followed the line of his gaze. Something about her particular air of annoyance gave him the uncomfortable feeling that she'd guessed far too much of his thoughts (and how hard could it have been, with them written all over his unguarded expression) and found them wholly not to her taste.

"They're not going to claw up the hull and bite you, paladin."

Too startled to be really stung, he shot her his filthiest glare in return and was annoyed when she only looked satisfied.


	6. Shades of Truth

Callista met Sir Aren's bewildered glare unrepentantly before pushing off from the rail, turning her back on both the bloated corpses and the green embers still flickering among the waves.

Brooding had always irritated her, and the more blameless the one doing it the more it irked her. Oh, she could guess easily enough the reasons the paladin thought he had – the man spoke with the soft-edged accent of the northern kingdoms and was several years older than she, old enough to have either fought a desperate retreat during the Scourge invasion or to feel guilt for his luck at dwelling abroad during his homeland's annihilation. It didn't take an archmage to figure out why he might stare at a shipful of Lordaeron dead with that hollowness in his eyes.

She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she threaded her way past sailors heaving rotten bodies unceremoniously over the side.

Not that that excused him martyring himself over having survived. This was why she couldn't stand paladins; anyone who felt the need to borrow someone else's guilt that way clearly hadn't done enough living of his own. While not nearly on the level of the demons and human cultists who'd created the plague, Callista had still done a number of unpleasant things she didn't really regret, and the idea that there might be someone, somewhere, feeling sorry over them when she herself felt no such thing deeply annoyed her in a way she couldn't explain. She'd never liked sharing, even her mistakes.

A tattered cloak of fog still hung chill over the ship, and the sweat that beaded her face from both the effort of her conjuration and its fierce heat added another layer of damp. She wanted to go inside to dry off, but the gaggle of passengers they'd shooed below deck during the battle had regained its collective nerve and now clogged up the stairwell in whispering knots.

Instead she moved off to the side, leaning against the smooth wooden planks of the forecastle wall and pulling her hands into her sleeves for warmth. All of the bodies had been cleared from the ship, either chucked overboard or wrapped in sailcloth for proper burial at sea, and the only lingering reminders of the battle were the blood and black ichor stains on the deck. As she watched, a pair of sailors arrived with a tub of soapy water they sloshed over the mess, washing most of it away and attacking the rest with coarse brushes.

She was only half surprised when Sir Aren turned from his contemplation of the drifting undead and strode in her direction. The guilt that had burdened his features earlier had lifted, replaced by weary resolve, and Callista stopped leaning against the wall and stood up straighter at his approach. Probably he'd found something to say about her earlier remark. If he was looking for an apology, he'd do better to talk to someone else.

He stopped in front of her, a red smear on his cheek where he must have inadvertently scratched with his blood-coated fingers.

There was an awkward pause as she waited for him to speak first.

"I just wanted to…thank you," he said finally.

Callista, who had expected an attempt at scolding, was thrown off-guard. She flicked her gaze over his face, searching for sarcasm, but of course she found none. "For what?" she asked, suspicious anyway.

"For not hesitating when I asked you to burn that ship. I'm sorry if I was short with you afterwards. I didn't expect…" He trailed off, spreading his bloody hands, and there was bitter self-mockery in the way his mouth twitched.

Callista had no trouble finishing his sentence. He didn't expect to run into the hideous ghouls of his own countrymen so far from Lordaeron's ruins, and he didn't expect that captain to take such umbrage at their method of destruction. She swatted away a brief glimmer of pity, glad there were few things in her own past that could ambush her that way.

"I'm not sensitive," she said with a shrug. "And I meant what I said. I would've done it anyway."

It was true – although necromancy and demonic summoning both fell under the broad heading of fel magic, Callista had little tolerance for perverters of death or their macabre creations. A warlock's power could be turned against mortals, but its real aim was mastery over demons. Necromancy, on the other hand…necromancy was a weapon against the uncorrupted living, and those who would turn mortal kin into rotting slaves were the basest of traitors. Callista hated them with the passion of someone intimate with enslavement herself.

"Even so," Sir Aren said with a faint smile.

There was another pause before he spoke again. Passengers chattered around them, but the fog blurred the voices into a grey murmur and threw a veil across faces, making their crowded surroundings strangely lonely.

"I've been thinking about what you said. About how you were…why you're here."

Looking at him for the first time without irritation or adrenaline to color her vision, she could see that the years had not been kind to the paladin. More lines creased the corners of his light brown eyes than a man so young ought to have earned, and there was a weariness in them that she suspected was permanent.

"And?" she said.

"And I want you to look at something."

Callista cocked her head. "What kind of something?"

His slight smile broadened at her obvious interest. "A journal. Follow me."

Curiosity piqued, she fell into step beside him as he strode through the restless crowd around the forecastle stairs. Some of the bolder passengers had moved to the rail, leaning over it to point out the lingering patches of green flame to their companions, and Callista made a face, glad there'd been few witnesses to the spell that had lit them. She wasn't ashamed of what she was, but she could do without people edging around her as though she might sprout horns at any moment.

She followed Sir Aren down the steps and through the dim corridor that led to his quarters, their progress aided in no small part by the way other passengers flinched out of the way at the sight of the paladin's bloodied hands.

He unlocked the door and held it open chivalrously for her to enter before him. As he did, he seemed to notice the clotted smears for the first time and frowned, nudging the door shut again with his boot.

"Not yours?" Callista asked, arching a brow at the blood.

"What? No," he said, glancing around until his gaze fell on a basin of water next to a washcloth and straight razor. "I was helping the wounded. I didn't realize how much had stuck."

"Blood will do that," Callista remarked.

He shot her a strange look, but didn't comment. Instead he moved to the basin and began scrubbing the gore from his hands, pink ribbons swirling into the water. "The papers I wanted you to see are on my desk. The black folder with the silver embossing."

She crossed the short distance to the desk and shrugged her damp cloak onto the back of the chair before it, the same chair she'd taken on her last (much less amicable) visit to Sir Aren's quarters. Lanterns hung on hooks on either side of the porthole behind the desk, providing far better illumination than the fog-shrouded sun.

She settled into the chair, appreciating the warm friendliness of the light after the debacle in the mist above decks, and pulled the folder he'd indicated closer. It was a sturdy leather item, and the silver embossing traced out the rayed sun of the Argent Dawn in its center, with another, more obscure sigil in the upper right corner. Callista's eyes widened as she saw it. This was part of Sir Aren's own briefing, information provided to senior officers – it wasn't forbidden for him to share it with members of his command, but she was surprised he'd show it to her.

Hands clean and dried now, Sir Aren slid into the chair on the other side of the desk and smiled wryly at her expression. "Yes, I know you're not of the Dawn. I'm bending the rules. Are you surprised?"

She was, actually, but when she thought about it she supposed it made sense. Something was wrong with this mission he'd been assigned, and they were the only two aboard this ship who might figure out what. Maybe he didn't care much for her, but clearly he took his duty to his own soldiers seriously, and it was worth dealing with a warlock if he could better protect them from whatever hidden dangers lay ahead.

She looked up from the folder and mirrored his smile with an impish twist. "Not unpleasantly. It's good for you. People who follow the rules lead uninteresting lives."

"Some would consider that a blessing." His eyes were very nearly amber in the lamplight, the guardedness cloaked now with good humor.

The paladin was, she decided, rather nice-looking when he smiled. If you liked the wounded type. Callista preferred arrogant and slightly dangerous herself, but she was surprised there'd been no fluttery priestesses waving him off at the pier. She snorted, opening the folder and inspecting the first water-stained piece of parchment within. "Unless they're uninteresting because they're so short…"

"I suppose if you want to be cynical about it…"

"I generally do." The document beneath her fingers was thick with a precise script, and a faint breath of the arcane rose from the ink. A mage's text, to be sure. The first entry was dated the spring of five years ago. "Whose records are these?"

"A mage named Michael Fairbanks. He accompanied the settlers of Jorn's Rest as chronicler and, I suppose, protection, of sorts. Every six months he'd send copies of his logs back to Stormwind for inclusion in the royal annals, but about two and a half years ago, they just…stopped. There's been no contact with anyone in the village since."

Intrigued despite herself, Callista thumbed through the carefully-penned pages. There weren't actually very many, for almost three years of records. "Is this all of it?"

Sir Aren shook his head. "Just a selection. Fairbanks wrote tomes once they arrived, most of it mundane – births, deaths, crops planted and so on. These are the entries we thought were significant."

She nodded, flipping back to the first page and shifting to settle herself more comfortably. It was a pity they hadn't included the rest of the volume, if only for contrast. Still, that wasn't the only thing that seemed odd about this. "Two and a half years? It took that long for Stormwind to realize something was wrong?"

Sir Aren's gaze flicked away from hers for a moment, and something like anger clouded his face before quickly clearing. "Stormwind's governers have many concerns. I'm sure they alerted us as soon as their suspicions were raised."

Callista repressed a cynical snort. A diplomatic way of saying that this group of settlers wasn't important enough for anyone with authority to care what happened to them. Until now. That alone might be worth examining.

Sir Aren stood, pushing in his chair and resting his hands on the back of it. "I'm going to go check on the others. Take as long as you like."

Already absorbed in the battered text before her, she only vaguely noted the sound of the door closing behind him.

* * *

_Three weeks past the festival of Noblegarden_

_Two years since the Battle of Mount Hyjal_

_Edward left us today, returning with the crew of _Sarren's Tears _to Stormwind. Truth be told, I'm surprised he made it this far. His arguments with his brother had become more vicious of late, and I don't think anyone was sorry to see him go. _

_Before he left, he told us running so far was cowardice, that we should settle in Elwynn and try to rejoin normal life. Maybe it _is_ cowardice, but no one who wasn't there for that last hellish flight through the passes should get to judge. Once you've seen one city rise in terror around you, all of them are suspect._

_There are no human cities north of Hyjal. Maybe this will be better. _

Sarren's Tears _put us ashore on the coast not far east of Winterfall Village. The beach was too rocky to allow a proper landing, so we and all our supplies (including the horses) were rowed out on skiffs. The water was far colder than might be expected for this latitude, and snow shrouded the beach above the tideline. There must be enchantment involved in this, but if so, it's magic so ancient and sunk into the land around us that I can sense nothing. A strange place, Winterspring. I would study it longer, but we need to cross the valley before the fiercest snows close the passes to the west._

_We hope to reach the village of Winterfall before dark. We'll rest there a day before continuing on to Everlook, where we can resupply before entering the true wilderness._

The next full entry was dated a week later.

_We traded our horses in Everlook for a shaggy breed of oxen inured to the cold. Katrin seems to think we came off worse in the exchange, but such are the hazards of dealing with the goblin cartels. The beasts seem well-suited to our journey, at least. We hitched them in teams of two to the wagons carrying our supplies and those few children too young to walk, ten in all, and so far they have pulled steadily and without complaint despite the biting wind. _

_Winterspring is beautiful, but it's a beauty without warmth, in every sense of the word. Ice sheathes the landscape in glittering crystal, and even the shadows are crisp and hard. I've heard it never thaws, certainly never long enough to plant crops – without the perpetual flow of supplies through the goblin trade routes, I do not believe mortal settlement would be possible in this place. Perhaps I'll bring that up the next time Father Calahan begins another of his interminable sermons on the evils of gold-lust._

_I am writing this from our camp three days out of Everlook. The mountains that are our destination loom high over the horizon, even at night, their snowy heights sliver with moonlight. The northern flanks face Moonglade and are supposed to be more temperate. Or so I dearly hope, since that is where we mean to settle. Far enough away from any other human town to satisfy even Rodolfus, who's been even more dour than usual since his brother left us at the coast. _

_It was generous of the night elves to grant us leave to settle on their borders, though I'm not foolish enough to think that sympathy was their only motivation. The forest to the west – called Felwood now, and whatever its original Darnassian name might have been is unknown to me – suffered greatly in the battle at Mount Hyjal and is now feared to be irrevocably corrupt. It pleases the Sentinels, I think, that our settlement should provide another outpost to keep watch on the evil festering there. Or, should that fail, an anvil to blunt any future attack, since the demons would surely seek to destroy us before moving on the uncorrupted forests._

_But then, perhaps I am too cynical._

Several entries seemed to be missing between the last and the one that followed.

_The trail has begun to climb towards the passes, and as the forest around us thaws, our journey has, conversely, only become more dangerous. The river ice is rotten, and broke beneath two of our wagons today as we tried to cross. No one was killed, luckily, but several sacks of seed washed overboard and sank before they could be recovered. We'll feel the loss when it comes time to plant. There were a number of injuries, too, the worst of which occurred when Marshall James' finger was crushed between the two wagons as the current swept them together. The damage proved too severe for Father Calahan to mend, and he was forced to amputate it at the first digit._

_Alas, the loss only makes him typical among our party. Nearly fifty men and women, former citizens of Lordaeron all, and the assortment of old wounds among us is a study in life's resiliency in the face of violence. Or I suppose it would be, if one tended towards optimism. One might also call it a lesson in life's indifference towards the living. I am disinclined to choose between them, myself._

_However one finds meaning in the fact, we are a broken, damaged lot, and not all our wounds are borne on the outside. Tamara Swift vanished on a hunting expedition two days past, and there is some doubt as to whether it was an accident, though none has been so bold as to voice the accusation against her brother publicly. The blood between those two soured even before they joined this expedition. Some bitter feud they never spoke of, and the truth of it seems less likely to out now than ever. There isn't enough evidence to say for sure that Martin Swift did anything untoward that day, but his step has lightened significantly since we moved on from the site of his sister's disappearance. In response, Rodolfus has ordered that no one leave sight of the caravan in groups of less than three, but that will do little to kill the suspicions that have sprung up like foul weeds._

_Game trails cross our path more frequently now, and at night the wolves howl._

Callista wrinkled her nose, turning the page and smoothing it down with her palm. Twisting Nether, what a nasty bunch. Judging by what she'd read so far, that whole village seemed to be a nothing but a collection of half-mad war victims who hated each other – was it really any surprise they'd all vanished? They'd probably murdered themselves. Of course, her perception could be skewed by which passages the Argent Dawn had chosen to include in this briefing, and she wished again that they'd provided the whole journal.

The next entry was dated four days past the fall equinox, two and a half years since the last piece of narrative. By Callista's reckoning, that meant it was probably one of the last logs to make it back to Stormwind before all contact was lost. The final items in what appeared to be a list of crops preceded it – 200 bushels of corn and 100 of squash.

_The last of the harvest was brought in today on the Mercer's farm. The soil here is fertile, rich with loam from the recently-cleared forest, and we will have plenty of food to last through the winter. A festival was held today to celebrate, and I am writing this by the light of the sparks drifting from the bonfire in the village square. Dancers whirl at the edge of the flame's glow, too flushed to feel the chill, and though there's no reason I shouldn't be among them my heart isn't in it._

_I've had as much part in the founding of this village as anyone here – clearing land, tilling fields, warding livestock against wild beasts – but I've yet to feel as though I've truly come home. Though I've known my fellow villagers for almost three years now, I still often feel like a stranger, and even the sun-dappled forest that surrounds us sometimes seems unfriendly to my eyes. _

_Yes, even the forest. Sometimes especially that. Ever since my...misadventure. The product of depressed and overwrought nerves, probably, but alarming all the same. Being unable to explain it by alchemy or magic, I hate to ascribe to it too much importance, but for the sake of completeness I will recount it here anyway. _

_Not two days ago, now, I'd been wandering the forest in search of autumn herbs, in a clearing not far from the village bounds. I'd been poking through the brush, content (or what passes for it these days), when a sudden terror descended on me. There was no cause or reason; my wild glances revealed that I was still alone in the clearing. I couldn't gather my magic, couldn't even flee; it was as though some vast and malevolent intelligence, passive in slumber, had suddenly cracked one depthless eye and looked _right at me._ Not just looked, but saw, and I was flattened beneath the force of its malice._

_Then, just as quickly as the feeling had come upon me, it was gone. The clearing was bright with sunlight and birdsong and unchanged. _

_A wholly irrational fear, and I have no means of explaining it except through some error in my own senses._

_The desire to leave and try again elsewhere is growing within me. I'd have left this summer, I think, when the passes north were clear, but I feel I still owe these people too much to abandon them. There are no other mages here, after all, and may not be for some time. _

_My mind travels back to Edward's last words to us on that frozen shore, when he called us all cowards. Maybe we were. Maybe I still am. I've been running so long – ever since that first neighbor's corpse shambled into the street more than half a decade past – that I'm not sure I remember what it feels like to stand still. The flaw, I suspect, is not the in village of Jorn's Rest, but in me, which is why I will stay. I want a life that's more than a long series of flights with no sanctuary. If I can't find it here, I have little hope for elsewhere._

Eight weeks later.

_6 days past Winter Veil_

_Nights are cold and dark, and the days are hardly better. A blizzard has raged around the village for three days now, drifting snow up higher than the shuttered windows. Only the dimmest sliver of bluish light filters through them even at midday. The wind has much less trouble finding entrance, much to my discomfort, and shrieks through every crack. I spent much of the first day stuffing those I could find with rags. _

_It's been over a week since I last saw a human face besides my own. Rodolfus, standing near the altar of our small cathedral. Smiling, not unkindly. I'd confided in him, finally, all that I felt. That terrible moment in the woods, and all the lesser ones since. The conviction that whatever this place had belonged to before we claimed it – even if it was only to itself – did not forgive our intrusion. Some of the more barbaric races believe that even trees and stones have spirits, and can rise up in anger against their enemies. Maybe it's true, and maybe we are the enemy. _

_Rodolfus listened with careful patience, as is his wont, but in the end was unmoved. No one else has these feelings, and even all the animals are content enough. "Michael, my friend," he said with a brotherly hand on my shoulder, "I think you're lonely." _

_Lonely. _

_Yes, I suppose I am. _

_--_

_8 days past Winter Veil_

_The storm has stopped, but the village still lies buried. Or at least I imagine it does. When I tried the door this morning it opened onto a solid wall of snow, white and sparkling in the light of my small candle. I could excavate myself if I chose, of course, send the whole drift glittering skywards with the most trivial of spells…but I do not choose. _

_I like it in here, I have decided. No neighbors hardly better than strangers, no sinister eyes to bludgeon me with their attention. With the wind still, it's quiet. I think I will stay._

_--_

_11 days past Winter Veil_

_They dug me out today. I resented this less than I might have because the food was beginning to run short. The snow lies in drifts up to the village eaves, and with the thick blanket of it still on the rooftops Jorn's Rest resembles nothing so much as a circle of white barrows. Restless barrows, from which the inhabitants have emerged to pester me with questions. They want to know why I didn't dig myself out, why no one saw me for days before the storm. They're cross, and my indifference made them crosser. I don't like it out there, the sky stares down at me like a cruel blue eye and I won't answer their questions. I would rather go back inside. I'm beginning to think they suspect _I _conjured that blizzard, which is ridiculous, of course. I don't have the power. I never have, not even before – _

_Not even before._

_I evaded them eventually, however. I am writing this from back inside my cabin. I sealed the door and windows with a shell of enchanted ice, and let's see them dig me out of that! Ha. Rodolfus wanted me to go with them up into the mountains. One of the hunting parties found something there, after the storm, and they said it was strange._

_Not strange enough for me. Or rather, too strange. I won't go with them. It's worse in the mountains, always worse. Like that time in forest. Not for us. Not for_

The narrative cut off in the middle of the sentence. Not in a scrawl, as though the author had been dragged away by some horror summoned by his own words, but neatly, as though he'd simply lost interest. Which, considering the fact that the mage had clearly become deranged, Callista did not think unlikely.

She shut the chronicle, fanning the animal scent of leather into the air, and narrowed her eyes as she digested what she'd just read. The mage was completely mad, obviously. Had there been anything strange in his writings beyond that?

The lanterns hung on either side of the porthole creaked and swayed gently with the ship, nudging the soft shadows into motion. The warm ordinariness of her surroundings made it easy to dismiss the cold pall of despair that so colored the mage's narrative.

Sir Aren had entered the room quietly some minutes ago, and now sat on his neatly-made bed rubbing oil into the blade of a plain-looking longsword. He looked up at the sound of her pushing her chair back across the planks. "Well?" he said, laying the sword carefully across the cloth in his lap. "What do you think?"

"Beyond the obvious?" She wrinkled her nose skeptically, lacing her fingers together to stretch before leaning back in her chair and looking at him. There was a raw kind of sensitivity about Sir Aren that made it difficult for Callista to imagine him wielding a blade, hacking through enemies as though they were nothing more than unfeeling meat, but his ease with the weapon in his hands gave the lie to that. "A sad enough story, but I don't see the mystery in it."

He frowned in disagreement. "But what they found in the cave – "

"Could have been anything. The man was _mad_, Aren. _Sir_ Aren," she corrected herself. "It could have been a ghost, a demon, a shiny rock – he never even saw it for himself. I think the most important fact is the obvious one. That village's mage – its only mage, unless he was lying, and I don't think he was – was mad as an imp on an altarstone. Cause enough for disaster, don't you think?"

"You think he killed them?" Sir Aren asked, brow rising in disbelief.

Callista shrugged. "It's possible, though that's not what I was getting at. That settlement was near Felwood. Do really you think the Legion would've left it intact for long? Without sorcery to fend them off, it was only a matter of time."

He shook his head, unconvinced. "Those fiends rarely leave the forest in force, even now. None of the earlier chronicles mentioned seeing even a single demon."

"The mortal armies weren't the only ones who had to rebuild after Hyjal," she countered with a humorless smile. "And it's hardly surprising they've never razed any night elven outposts – they're all fortified by now, aren't they? The Legion's battles against the elves rarely went well, anyway, and not all of them are too stupid to remember it. A lone, unguarded human settlement, however…"

"Unguarded? Most of those villagers were veterans, Callista. Survivors. Almost all of them could wield a blade."

"Better than a company of felguards?"

"There are no _companies_ of felguards in Felwood," he said in exasperation. "Plenty of demons, yes, but as far as we can tell they've all gone feral. They attack each other as often as they do us!"

For a moment Callista just stared, torn between disbelief, pity and black amusement, until she resolved her dilemma with a peal of laughter, swiveling sideways in her chair to better eye him. "Oh, do they now?" she said, choking back her inappropriate mirth. "Whoever your spies are, shoot them."

She'd managed to annoy him again; the set of his broad shoulders had become distinctly stubborn. "What are you saying?"

She opened her mouth to snap something derisive but hesitated instead, thinking about that for a moment. What _was_ she saying? Obviously the Alliance (or at least the part of it represented by Sir Aren) had little idea what it was really dealing with in Felwood. Patriotism (what smidgeon of it she'd ever had) dictated she remedy that, but the fact of the matter was, at the moment she was far more irritated with the Alliance than she was with at least one of the dreadlords in Jaedenar. Granted, he _had_ clawed up her arm and caused her a fair bit of hungover explaining the next morning, but from a demon that treatment was practically affectionate. Sort of. Okay, maybe not, but it was still preferable to blackmail.

At the same time, she was becoming fond of Sir Aren and his company (except for, perhaps, that night elf), and the idea of them strolling obliviously into the forest to get shredded by the Shadow Council caused her a nasty stab of guilt.

Repressing a sigh of annoyance directed mostly at herself, she met his gaze with her own purged of the offending amusement. "I'm saying, the Legion there is more formidable than you seem to think. I've been to Felwood. There are true commanders there now, bringing their forces in line."

The guardedness was back in his posture when he looked at her, there in the stiffness of his back and the way his fingers curled unconsciously around the hilt of the sword in his lap. "What were you – " He cut himself off with a shake of his head. "No, don't tell me, I don't want to know. What kind of commanders? More satyrs? Doomguards?"

No, he didn't want to know, because then he might not be able to trust her, and he had no choice but to trust her, did he? "If it makes you feel better, I was only there after plaguebloom and I didn't go very far in," she said, offering him the lie out of sympathy. "I just talked to other warlocks who had. And yes, there are satyrs and doomguards there, but if the rumors are true, they answer to a dreadlord. _That's_ why you should leave it alone."

He seemed to study the glistening blade on his lap before meeting her eyes again. "And you believe these rumors?"

Oh, did she ever. "Yes."

He nodded, and she was annoyed to see neither surprise nor faltering in his eyes, only resignation. "We'd heard…whispers…but we didn't want to believe it without harder evidence. There'd never been very many, even during the war, and we'd made an effort to destroy them all. We thought we'd done it, too. Except for that Forsaken witch's pet."

Yes, Varimathras. Callista drew little distinction between the free-willed undead and those of the Scourge, but she had a great deal of professional respect for anyone who could put a leash on a creature like Nerothos, whether the woman was still breathing or not. With effort, she swallowed the impulse to scoff at anyone who thought they'd killed every Legion dreadlord on Azeroth. She had no doubt the fiends would be delighted to hear it. "I get the impression they're not easy creatures to corner," she said, not entirely managing to keep the dryness from her tone.

Luckily, the paladin seemed to notice nothing odd about it. "No, they're not," he agreed. "Even so, our orders stand. We can't 'leave it alone,' though we'll be as careful as we can." He paused, watching her, and she knew, with an uncomfortable feeling, what he was about to ask even before he said it. "I know you've been badly done by, and I'm sorry. But we could really use your help."

She started shaking her head before he'd finished his sentence. "No, you can't. There's nothing I could do for you against a dreadlord. No warlock I know could."

It was probably even true. Oh, if he caught them all skulking through Felwood, Nerothos might let _her_ go (after he finished sneering and coercing a favor or two out of her), but she doubted very much that his tolerance would extend to a gaggle of paladins. Besides, there was no guarantee that Nerothos would even be the creature they met. There was more than one dreadlord in that forest, and it was likely they'd be hacked to pieces by felguards before they saw any of them anyway.

"We're not going there to kill a dreadlord, Callista," he said. He leaned forward over the sword resting on his lap, holding her gaze with his own. The man could really look depressingly sincere when he wanted to. "We just want to search and stay beneath notice."

The twinge of sympathy his guileless expression stirred in her was quickly snuffed by a defensive flare of contempt. Sensing they'd reached an impasse and annoyed at his continued attempts to persuade her, Callista stood with an impatient scrape of chair legs, gathering her cloak over one arm. "If you want to stay beneath notice, then do your searching somewhere else."

"We can't. You know we can't." His voice was quiet, but there was iron in it. The voice of a man who had his orders and intended to follow them, eyes wide open and without illusion, straight into the abyss.

Callista scowled. Twisting Nether, the only thing worse than a paladin who was an honor-less hypocrite was one who wasn't. The more earnest and resigned he sounded, the more she suffered an unholy urge to grab him by the collar of his tunic and shake. Not that it would likely help; the man was almost twice as broad in the shoulder as she was. Maybe she could summon her voidwalker and they could _both_ shake. Sir Aren still probably wouldn't be convinced, but at least she would feel better.

Striding to the door, she pulled it open and paused, studying the now wary-looking paladin with her most scathing expression. "Then you've got all the help I can give you."

Not waiting for a reply, she kicked the door shut behind her hard enough to rattle the locks of the rooms on either side, and blinked as the head of every passenger in the corridor (including both Redbranch brothers) swiveled to stare at the slam.

Alright. Perhaps that had been slightly over-dramatic.


	7. Visitation

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's left feedback! It seriously makes my day, and I'm glad people seem to like Sir Aren. I kind of assume that the main draw of my stuff is the sketchy warlocks and/or dreadlords, so at first I was worried that a nice-guy paladin as a major character would put people off. (Though don't worry, the sketchy characters are by no means going to become less frequent or sketch-tastic). I've been debating changing the sub-genre of this fic to Romance, but I can't decide if readers will get to the end of what I've written so far and declare false advertising. Hah. Maybe I'll leave it for now…

* * *

Long after the last shivers in the air from Callista's exit had stilled, Aren continued to study the length of bright steel that lay in his lap. The ritual with the oil and the worn piece of sharkskin was entirely unnecessary – the blessing that lay on the plain-looking blade would keep it from ever rusting or growing dull – but it was an old comforting habit now, relic of a time when the weapon had been an ordinary sword in truth, given to him by a captain long dead in defense of a kingdom equally so. He'd been young, then. A city guard who'd never drawn blade in anything but mock battles, dreaming of heroism in a war naively clean of blood.

Lamplight flickered from the steel, spattering the planks of the ceiling with light. He'd since found his war, and it hadn't been clean at all. Of anything. When he'd been a boy, reared on tales of Lothar and Turalyon and the fall of the orcish Horde, he'd believed that war was about courage; when he'd joined the guard and imagined himself very grown and wise, he'd believed it was about killing; when he slashed his blade across the throat of his first human enemy, a cultist who'd laughed at his white rage even as he choked on his own blood, he'd realized the truth: war was about _annihilation_. Of people. Land. Decency. Faith. When all your enemy sought was death, killing wasn't enough.

He slid the sword carefully back into its reinforced leather scabbard and stood, buckling it at his belt over his left hip. The danger was past, now, but the other passengers would be skittish, and the sight of him and the rest of his company held in readiness might be reassuring. Not that they'd been very useful last time. It was the one thing he envied Callista and her ilk; a skilled arcanist had little need of weapons other than herself.

Checking one last time that he'd scrubbed all of the dried blood from his hands, he pulled open his door and headed into the corridor. Thoughts drifting back to the warlock, he suppressed a mental wince at the way their conversation had ended. The woman seemed to vacillate solely between more-or-less tolerant amusement (he tried not to let the arrogance implicit in it bother him) and vicious irritation, and whatever cues triggered the switch were completely mystifying to him. Maybe it was simply that she hated him. She did think he'd tried to blackmail her, after all.

And the things she'd said about Felwood…

The mist sent a chill through him as he stepped out of the stairwell and into the feeble daylight. A breeze had sprung up to twist the fog into tattered shreds, dispelling some of the heavy dread that hung in it even as it worsened the cold. Only a few huddled figures remained on deck, and none turned to watch as Aren returned to his familiar place at the rail, staring contemplatively down into iron waves streamered with mist. Mercifully free of wreckage, now.

Callista had confirmed all the Dawn's worst suspicions about that corrupted forest, and done it as though she'd thought them complete fools to believe anything else. The casualness of the revelation disturbed him almost as much as its substance. How had she come by such knowledge? Did all warlocks know as much? She'd implied so. Perhaps they'd been wrong to so alienate those regulars of The Slaughtered Lamb. Or perhaps she was lying, the knowledge peculiar to her alone, and maybe letting her on this ship was the mistake. But no, that was unfair. She hadn't even volunteered for this, and all she wanted was to go home.

Movement at the corner of his eye snagged his attention, and he glanced over to see Luciel lean against the mist-beaded rail to his right. She smiled at his regard, expression nudging the dark leopard-like spots of her tattoos into new lines. He'd known the night elf for some time now, but had never quite gotten used to speaking with a woman head and shoulders above his own by no means inconsequential height. She had none of the awkwardness very tall women of his own race sometimes displayed; on the contrary, she moved with the graceful economy of a hunting cat.

"Your people's hunger for travel always astonishes me," she said, tilting her gaze wryly at the sails luffing in the breeze.

Aren followed the line of her glance with mild surprise. "Does it? I saw much larger ships at Auberdine." Much more beautiful, too, lantern-hung and carved with cunningly-wrought natural scenes.

"Yes, and I have no doubt you remember them because they were each unique, while this ship has dozens of sisters. My people do not build fleets. There are too few willing to be borne by them."

He turned, leaning his back against the hard rail and crossing his arms against the cold as he watched the white canvas ripple. "That…surprises me. There are quite a few elves in the Dawn, now. And even more in Outland."

Her smile was wistful beneath the hard silver of her eyes. "We have always understood necessity."

Necessity. Yes. Luciel's people were the first guardians of this world, charged by dragons before the first human cities rose and gifted immortality in exchange. He heard that at Mount Hyjal they had surrendered that gift, though he had never dared ask Luciel if it were true. Even so, they were ever at the front lines in the battle against the demons.

"Are you…sorry…that you're no longer alone?" he asked haltingly. He knew they had always been an insular people, wondered if they resented being thrust into the crowded politics of the Alliance.

For a moment Luciel was silent. Hair the deep blue of shadow fell across a pointed ear as she canted her head in thought. "For myself…no. Though there is much to trouble us about you. You harbor so many arcanists. You tolerate consorters with demons but disregard all life that can't raise a blade in its own defense." She smiled again. "But you stood with us against the Legion, and after all, your races are all so young. My own people made much more terrible mistakes in our own youth. Perhaps history will be lesson enough."

_And how much of that history have you seen?_ He wanted to ask, but didn't. He had no idea how old Luciel really was; any event she mentioned that happened before Hyjal belonged solely to her own people, and he had no means of gauging its antiquity. He suspected, however, that she'd seen more than a few human lifetimes. Sometimes he wondered if she resented serving under the command of an officer with only a fraction of her long experience.

"Perhaps," he agreed.

The heavy clomp of boots and cheerful ring of voices marked Ander and Nathanial's arrival on deck, Vorthaal in their wake. They'd all donned their black and silver tabards, though only Nathanial had a scabbard hanging at his hip.

"So you're _not_ an oozeling!" Ander called, grinning at Aren.

This was a weird kind of greeting, but then, he'd learned to expect that from Ander. "Was I supposed to be?"

"Maybe." He tipped his chin mischievously at Luciel, and she raised a long brow in return. "We saw Callista storming out of your room with a face to freeze hellfire. Since you weren't with her, we assumed she'd turned you into something disgusting."

This was said with a certain amount of relish, as though Ander might not have minded the spectacle.

"_You_ assumed," Nathanial corrected, crossing his arms with a clink of chainmail.

"I assumed and you didn't correct me…"

"Would that not be a serious breach of discipline?" Vorthaal wondered, frowning in bemusement. The draenei stood as tall as one Redbranch sitting on the other's shoulders, and had to crane his neck downwards to study the two curly-haired humans. "I was not aware your warlocks were skilled in such transformations."

"It would be, and they aren't," Nathanial said, rolling his eyes tolerantly at Ander. "My brother thinks he's funny."

"I just want to know what he said to her."

"Why?" Nathanial asked with an air of something not quite suspicion.

Luciel smiled at Ander's suddenly cherubic expression, showing canines just a little too pointed to be human. "Probably so he can repeat it," she said dryly.

"_Hey!_"

Aren snorted, shaking his head. Sooner or later, he'd have to gather them all together to share some or all of what he'd learned about their mission since leaving port, but now was not the time.

"Callista is more familiar with Felwood than I am," he said, trying to be as truthful as possible without saying too much. "I wanted her opinion on our approach."

Ander snickered. "I guess she didn't like it."

"She had…concerns," Aren admitted. He pushed himself away from the rail, cloak sticking to his back where the mist had dampened it. "But nothing we don't have plenty of time to work out before we disembark."

As Ander nodded, interest already waning in light of his dull explanation, he silently prayed that it wasn't a lie.

* * *

Not long after, Callista sat in the galley beneath the swaying light of one of the lanterns hung on the wall. The sun had begun to set, staining the threads of mist outside the porthole the color of wet blood. A sheet of parchment lay on the table before her, blank except for an address in the Mage Quarter and a greeting – "Dear Tun."

Wrinkling her nose thoughtfully, she knocked the excess ink off against the side of the inkwell and set the nib of her quill to paper. She wouldn't be able to mail the letter until they made port, but her earlier conversation with Sir Aren had agitated her, and she needed something to do besides pace the deck and unnerve superstitious sailors. The problem was, writing required her to marshal her thoughts into some kind of order, and at the moment she was finding that difficult.

_Dear Tun,_

_Two days out of port and the fog is as thick as soup. Or maybe graveyard mud would be more appropriate, since it's also full of corpses. We've already been attacked by undead. We managed to fight them off, only slightly hampered by the fact this ship is ferrying idiots. Tried to warn them about Felwood but they wouldn't listen. Will probably try to stroll through Jaedenar and get eaten. No, I am not sarcastic because this bothers me, why would you think that?_

Dropping her quill back into the inkwell with an unconscious scowl, she waved her palm above the parchment, blue flame devouring the ink in its wake. When the offending paragraph was gone, she leaned back in her chair, eyeing the innocuous rectangle of paper as though wondering what it might look like on fire too.

This lopsided staring contest was interrupted when someone slid onto the bench across from Callista and thudded a large tome down on the table.

She probably would've ignored the new arrival, except it decided then to speak to her.

"I saw what you did."

The voice was high and feminine and entirely unfamiliar. In no state of mind to make friends, Callista looked up without tempering her scowl. The human girl – for that's what the newcomer was – flinched a little before setting her jaw stubbornly. She looked to be in her middle teens, the hood of her student's cloak pulled up over her mousy brown hair despite the heat of the galley. A mage, then.

Irritation growing, Callista said nothing, continuing to study the strange girl with a hostile contempt she hoped she'd find intimidating enough to flee.

A vain hope, it turned out, as the girl's already large eyes grew even larger (or maybe it only seemed that way as she tried to shrink deeper into her cloak) but she didn't rise from the bench. "I saw what you did," she repeated, dropping her gaze before meeting Callista's again determinedly. "To that ship. The captain says you're a fire mage, but I know you're not."

The warlock had never had any particular love of children, especially nosy ones, and very especially ones she suspected were about to lecture her on the evils of unrestrained magic. Her eyes flicked to the book the girl had dropped so vehemently onto the table – _Compendium Pyromancia_, a mages' sixth-year textbook. Callista had studied it herself, briefly, before her expulsion for meddling with demons. "Yes, which means I can't help you with your homework. Go pester someone else."

The girl shifted uncomfortably on the bench, but the stubborn lines of her jaw didn't relax. "Can you read demonic?"

Oh, Twisting Nether, this was worse than a self-righteous speech. She narrowed her eyes, examining the girl's book more closely, and finally caught a weak breath of fel magic. Illusioned, though not well enough. "The enchantment on that is failing," she observed irrelevantly. If the girl was too inexperienced to read whatever spell she was trying to cast, she was almost certainly too inexperienced to be messing with it anyway.

"I know it is," the girl said, still fidgeting. "But I can't help it, it's not mine."

Callista raised a brow, causing her to squirm even more.

"The spell isn't mine, I mean. The book is. Please, I'm trying to learn."

"Whatever you want with demons, it's probably not worth it. Throw that thing overboard before one of your magisters does it for you. And tosses you after it." Resigned to the fact she wouldn't be finishing her letter until she shooed this girl away, Callista screwed the top back onto her inkwell and seared the damp ink from her quill nib with a twitch of her fingers.

The girl scowled. "How can you say that after what I saw you do."

Dishonestly, that's how. But just because Callista didn't regret her choices didn't mean she'd recommend them to children. She snorted. "Burning a pile of dead wood isn't much of a show of power."

"It is when you make a firestorm to do it," she said, watching her suspiciously.

Alright, so maybe she _had_ used a little overkill. But there had been undead on that ship, and the necromancy that animated them wouldn't fail if the bodies were just singed; she'd needed to annihilate them. And so she had. "A mage could've conjured a better one." _And that captain wouldn't have had fits over it._

The girl crossed her thin arms over her chest. "I don't want to conjure a firestorm. I want to kill demons."

"_Kill_ demons?" Callista echoed in a mixture of amusement and disbelief. "You do know what warlocks do."

Annoyance flashed over the girl's face, or maybe it was just the shadow of her hood in the swinging lamplight. "You have power over them. You can enslave them, and that makes them easier to kill."

Callista laughed, intentionally making the sound unpleasant. "Does it now?" She wasn't sure where this girl was getting her ideas, but she had best abandon them before she learned the truth through nasty experience. "Do you know what the problem is with leashes? They only work when they're held at both ends."

The girl scowled uncertainly at her, sensing a trap. "But only one end has the power."

Callista scoffed again. "You've never seen a big dog drag a serving boy through the mud? Why do you want to kill demons anyway?" She had a dim view of demon-slaying as a hobby even for people who were good at it, if they were doing it for anything but the coin. Trying to exterminate the Burning Legion by killing demons one by one was like trying to empty the ocean with a teacup.

Undeterred, the girl continued to stare at her with her arms crossed obstinately. "If I tell you, will you help me?"

"Probably not."

The girl made a face, unsure whether to take that seriously. "My brother died in Ashenvale forest," she said after a moment. "During the war. Satyrs killed him." She intentionally kept her voice hard, but the awkward stiffness in her expression betrayed her grief anyway.

Oh, plaguing hells. Callista hated touchy scenes. She was terrible at finding the right thing to say, something she found strangely uncomfortable considering that in normal conversation she often said the exact wrong thing on purpose. She eyed the girl skeptically. "Then I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know you're trying to bargain with demons."

"Not bargain!" the girl said, bristling. "I want to – "

"Enslave them, I know," Callista interrupted. "But the first thing you learn about enslaving demons, at least if you want to live very long, is how to pick your battles. Otherwise you'll be too tired to fight the important ones, and then you might find that leash you're holding wrapped around your neck. Just because a demon's a slave doesn't mean it stops acting like what it is."

The girl seemed to chew on that, but only for a moment before her stubborn glower returned. "I'm not going to – "

"Oh, save it," Callista said, toying irritably with the feather of her quill. "I don't know you, and I don't care what you do or why. Or what you tell yourself about why. Go join the Argus Wake for all it matters to me, but don't expect me to help."

The girl's mouth fell open slightly at such a blunt dismissal, but she snapped it shut once she noticed and an angry flush rose in her cheeks. Standing (finally), she swept her book off the table. "My name's Dinah," she said. "Now you know."

She whirled off, exit marred only a little when her cloak snagged on a splinter in the table and she had to tug it free.

Callista repressed a snort as she stalked away. Had she been so dramatic at that age? Probably. Very likely she'd been worse. Thank Light and Shadow she'd never had to deal with herself.

"Why did you discourage her?"

She jumped, knocking over her inkwell, as Vorthaal's heavily-accented voice rumbled from above her right shoulder. The draenei moved very lightly for an eight-foot-tall armored creature with enormous hooves.

Righting the inkwell, which had fortunately remained closed, she twisted around to look at him. "Tw-Holy Light, don't _do_ that!"

Tail swishing in a gesture she imagined was sheepish, he offered her a smile. "My apologies. I did not mean to offend, I was only curious."

"No, it's alright, you just startled me." She cocked her head, brushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear as she eyed him. How long had he been listening? "Do you really think I should've encouraged her?"

Purple crystals pulsed gently at his pauldrons and the center of his breastplate, set in hammered metal thicker than her hand. Nether, except for the choice of colors he really did look like an eredar. "Of course not," he said. "It is a very narrow path you walk when you bargain with man'ari. But it is a path you have chosen, and you do not seem to regret it."

"No, I don't," Callista said. "But just because I'm happy with my choices doesn't mean they've all been good."

"You have been lucky," he said, narrowing his bright white eyes speculatively on her face.

The close regard made her uncomfortable, but she was too used to the feeling to squirm. "Not _just_ luck, I hope," she said, vaguely nettled by the implication. "But it helps. And 'Be lucky' is hardly useful advice."

"No, it is not," he agreed.

Silence followed his words. With Dinah's abrupt departure, they were the only two passengers left in the galley. The last glow of sunset had faded behind the portholes, now nothing but circles of inky blackness, and though lanterns still burned in the galley, a dwarf with a long cork-handled snuffer was edging around the room and dousing each one.

"The sun is gone, and it seems it is time to retire, yes?" Vorthaal said finally, watching him. The draenei was even more imposing in profile, the half-light emphasizing the bony ridges on his nose and the tendrils snaking down from his chin.

"So it seems," Callista said. She wondered what he'd made of their conversation, gathering up her writing supplies and still mostly blank parchment and following him as he made his way out of the galley. The draenei's tolerance surprised her, especially from a paladin. He had better reason to hate warlocks than anyone aboard, even Luciel, yet he showed her far less hostility. Odd, considering her own probably obvious discomfort in his presence.

She found herself strangely glad of him now, however. They walked the unlit hall alone, and, on this night at least, _The Fortitude_ seemed to her an unfriendly place. Pitch blackness and lonely corridors, the sigh of waves and the groan of straining wood. She mentally scolded herself for her sudden fear of the harmless dark. Probably that scene on deck earlier – all those ghastly plague-eaten corpses staggering through the mist – was preying on her nerves. She'd walked without hesitation in much more dangerous places.

All the same, she felt a foolish stab of relief when Wynda opened the door to her knock.

"Ach, I was wondering where you went," she said, opening it further to spill a golden wedge of light into the corridor.

"Just writing a letter. Well, trying to," Callista amended as Wynda snorted at her pristine piece of parchment.

Vorthaal dipped his head courteously at the two women. When he straightened again, the ridges that climbed from his forehead almost scraped the ceiling. "Dream in the Light."

Callista thought that was rather unlikely in her case, but she appreciated the sentiment anyway. "And you."

His soft hoofbeats faded down the corridor as Wynda closed the door behind them.

* * *

She wasn't sure what woke her, but it wasn't the sun. Opening her eyes groggily in the unrelieved darkness of her room, she pulled her quilt closer around her shoulders and rolled over so she could see out the porthole. The fog that had clung to the glass earlier had dissipated and cold pinpricks of starlight glittered in the sky. Wynda's soft breathing floated up from the lower bunk, slow and even with sleep.

Yawning, Callista rolled back over and shut her eyes, trying to recapture her pleasant drowsiness. Probably she just wasn't used yet to going to bed with the sun. In Stormwind, she often stayed up late into the night, practicing spells or carousing or doing any number of things best tried in darkness, but on this ship there was little to do after sunset. She was sure she just needed to adjust.

Even so, a niggling sense of unease fouled her efforts to relax back into sleep. Her heartbeats came fast despite the comforting stillness of her room, and she somehow found her fingers tangled tight in her sheets. When she unclenched them the fabric was damp with sweat.

Silently berating herself for foolishness even as she did it, she quested outward with her magic, searching for anything awry. She closed her eyes, hiding the green glow that would've risen in them in case Wynda woke up to be alarmed, but after a moment it faded anyway. There was nothing there, of course. She hadn't really expected to find demons miles out to sea.

Throwing an arm over her eyes, she shifted deeper into her warm nest of blankets, cursing the way her ears pricked at every night noise of the ship. The creak of wood, the slap of water against the hull, she swore she could even hear the scratch of canvas against the spars high above. Clearly she wasn't cut out for sailing.

Something thumped out in the corridor.

Last tendrils of sleep banished, Callista stiffened, ears straining, even as she continued to scold herself. So what if that _wasn't_ just some sailor dropping a bundle? What did she expect to find on this crate that she couldn't maul as easily as thinking?

The idea wasn't as comforting as it usually was.

_Scritch, scratch. _

_Pause. _

_Scratch. Scratch_.

The thump didn't repeat itself, but that curious furtive scraping continued. Canvas against the spars, indeed.

Breathing a low hiss, Callista sat up and found herself frozen with dread. Suddenly, she knew – _knew_, with the same certainty that told her night followed sunset and fire would burn – that there was something in the room.

She hunched down against her pillow, heart hammering in her ears and eyes straining futilely against the dark. Inky shadows coiled along the floor, shelter for things with long teeth and pitted eyes, and didn't she know better than anyone that such creatures were real? Listening to the ragged gasp of her own breath in the silence, the urge to simply curl up against the headboard to wait for dawn was very strong. If she didn't move, she would be safe...

Startled by her own thought, her eyes narrowed briefly against the dark. Safe? Would she be? Why? A small suspicious corner of her mind stirred awake to struggle against the terror, but it was so hard to think about anything but weakness. Like her thoughts were being shoved down some claustrophobic tunnel with nothing but fear at its end.

Being shoved. Yes, that was exactly what it felt like. And there was a certain familiarity to the feeling, flashes of a dark corridor on a strange world, artificial terror and the sardonic sneer of a dreadlord...

Oh, she didn't _think_ so.

Fear magic was a nasty enough trick even from the other end. And Callista didn't like being steered.

Holding on to that flare of defiance, she slid silently out from her covers until she could rest her bare feet on the first rung of the bunk ladder. Easing her weight onto it to avoid the groan of wood, she climbed down, pausing at the bottom to take a few deep breaths and still her shaking hands. A particularly loud creak almost sent her scrambling upwards again, but she snarled viciously at herself until the fear ebbed.

Deep shadows crevassed the floor, but all of them were still.

She glanced over at the lump Wynda made under the quilt, toying with the idea of waking her, but no, not yet. If she turned out to be wrong, she wasn't about to have some paladin chuckling at her for being afraid of the dark.

Slipping the two short steps to the door, she laid a palm against the heavy wood and leaned to the peephole with breath held, swearing silently when her trembling almost made her knock her eye against it.

The scratching sound was louder with her ear almost to the boards, but for a moment all she saw was blackness. Had someone painted over the peephole?

Then the dark faded, and she was glad she'd held her breath because it meant she had no air to make a sound. Tattered grey flaps, like moth-eaten curtains but strangely moist, a flash of something white, a coil of rope on the floor on the other side of the corridor…it took her a moment to realize she was staring _into_ the decayed cheek of a ghoul.

She stifled the urge to leap away from the door. Twisting Nether, the thing was _right there_! How hadn't it smelled her?

Lank hair flashed before the peephole as it lurched past, clawed toenails scraping against the floorboards. Movement across the corridor caught her attention as another ghoul staggered into view, the milky ghostlight of its eyes shining in the dark.

This wasn't right. Where had they come from? Why hadn't anyone raised an alarm?

Backing quietly away from the door, Callista leaned close over Wynda's ear, hand hovering near the other woman's mouth in case she woke too loudly. "Wynda!" she hissed.

The dwarf stirred with a groan, tousled red hair emerging farther from the blankets, but she didn't open her eyes. "For Light's sake – "

"Shhhh! Wake up and be quiet!" Callista rasped. "There's ghouls in the corridor."

That took a moment to penetrate Wynda's haze of sleep, but once it did her eyes flew open and she grunted in disbelief. She rolled over to face Callista, throwing off her covers. "What?" she said, voice barely above a whisper this time. "How many? What are you on about, lass, we left them all behind!"

"Only two that I could see, but there may be more. We sailed pretty close to some of the ones in the water, maybe they managed to grab on under the hull." That relentless fear was still there, slinking beneath the surface of her self-control, but the presence of another living creature helped. Callista rummaged quietly through her pack as she spoke, unfolding her black and red set of robes and pulling them on over the shift she'd worn to sleep. She didn't bother with socks or calfskin leggings, yanking her boots on over her bare feet. She'd just have to remember not to go up any ladders first, assuming anyone even cared about such things during a ghoul invasion.

In typical fashion, Wynda had gone to sleep in her leathers, putting her a step ahead of the half-clad warlock. "I believe you, but if they're out there why can't I hear screaming? And why do I feel like there's spiders running up my spine even though I haven't even seen the fiends?"

Callista shrugged, knotting her tangled hair up and away from her face. "I was right up against the door before and they didn't seem to notice." That was odd, but she thought the dwarf's second question was the better one. Callista's mouth was dry and her heart raced in something near terror, far out of proportion to what the sight of two ghouls should have caused. There was foul magic in this for certain, but whose? Those rotted corpses outside couldn't possibly have enough mind left for spellwork.

Wynda hefted her thick silver breastplate easily, ducking her head through and then tightening the straps with practiced jerks. "Then there's probably more mischief than the two you saw about, but we'll get to the bottom of it starting with them." She pulled on her armored boots and gauntlets and lifted her warhammer from where it rested against the bedpost, golden light already welling up from its inscriptions. "I'll go first and you follow close. Finish it quietly. Don't want anyone sticking his head out the door to get it clawed off."

That sounded fine to Callista, who wasn't about to quibble over the privilege of leaping first into a Scourge-infested hallway. She gave the pouch of soulshards linked to her belt a tug, checking the binding. "Alright. Let's go."

Wynda rested her hammer against her shoulder, pausing to peer though the peephole and grunting in disgust before turning the doorknob carefully. She slipped through, and Callista heard the wet crunch of steel hitting bone before she'd even followed her out into the passage.

She ducked out at her heels, iridescent shadow coursing through her fingers as she hunted for targets.

One ghoul already down, head crushed to pulp by a hammer swing, and two more near the stairs whirling to face Wynda. The whole engagement was strangely quiet; no moans or snarls from the undead, no battle cries from the paladin, just the light _thunk_ of Wynda's boots on the wood as she stalked towards them.

Checking once over her shoulder for an ambush (not that ghouls usually ambushed, but something had been off about this fight from the start) she loosed the spell she'd gathered into a seething mass of dark tendrils that rocketed towards the ghoul on the right, knocking it back like a rag doll just as it sprung for Wynda. After the helplessness she'd felt earlier, she found the act immensely satisfying.

The other ghoul leaped as well, hunching towards the paladin in an unnatural bestial lope before barreling into her. Its claws and broken teeth scrabbled across her breastplate as it sought her throat, but she grabbed it by the scruff of its moldy tunic and threw it from her. She edged around its thrashing body, trying to gain enough room in the narrow corridor for a finishing swing.

The ghoul mired in Callista's spell writhed on the floor, the shadowy ropes that bound it corroding through rotten skin already seared down to bone in some places. Not good enough – the magic that animated these corpses was a product of Shadow too, and it was resisting her. Gritting her teeth, power flared through her and the ropes constricted, the ghoul falling still as its skull burst like a grape.

Luckily, Callista was out of spatter range, but Wynda wasn't and she grimaced as black ichor slashed across her knees. "Muradin's beard, I think I liked it better when you burned them." She nudged the crushed corpse of the last ghoul with her hammer, now blazing with light, but it didn't twitch.

Callista flicked her eyes around the corridor, still skittish under the last vestiges of that strange fear, but saw nothing stir. "Me too, but do you know what burns even better than ghouls?"

For a moment Wynda frowned, then she barked a humorless laugh, gaze skimming across the varnished wood that surrounded them. "Aye, I take your point. Muck it is, then. Now, let's get the others out of their rooms, no reason we should have all the fun."

Callista was turning to do just that when a frightened yell shattered the silence of the corridor.

She spun to see a man leaning half out of his room, eyes wide as he stared down at the dripping corpse that had fetched up against his door.

"It's alright, lad," Wynda said, keeping her voice low and reassuring as she moved towards him. "Just go back inside and shut your door. We'll take care of – "

"What's going on?" he demanded shakily, cutting her off. His gaze was still pinned to the ghoul's caved-in head. "What happened to it?"

Doors slammed open up and down the corridor as heads emerged to gawk at the commotion. Shrieks rang out as passengers noticed the gore strewn over the planks, and the murmur of conversation rose towards a terrified roar.

"Everyone calm down!" Wynda shouted, trying to chivvy a pair of gnomes back into their room. "Go back inside and don't open your doors!"

She was almost universally ignored as some of the braver passengers began milling out into the passageway still in their nightclothes, cries for someone to find the captain floating above the din.

Ander and Nathanial chose this moment to stumble out of their room, both clad only in loose-fitting pants and rubbing sleep out of their eyes.

"What's happening?" Nathanial called to Wynda.

Ander made the mistake of taking an extra step over the threshold, putting his bare foot down in a congealing puddle of decayed blood and almost stumbling over the dead ghoul. His eyes widened, and for a moment Callista thought he was about to yell as loudly as any passenger in the hallway, but then his nose wrinkled and he began shaking his foot off violently. "Ewww. Who didn't mop."

"Don't mess around, lad," Wynda said impatiently. "Help me get these people back inside!"

Buffeted by bodies and noise, Callista began shoving her way towards the stairwell that led down into the hold, partly out of a vague idea that there might be more ghouls but mostly because she was tired of dodging elbows. The thought of being conscripted by Wynda to herd a bunch of shrieking passengers back into their pens like cattle was extremely unappealing. She'd already had enough of this night.

A hand closed around her arm, and she spun around to snap at its owner until she recognized his face. Sir Aren looked down at her still squint-eyed with sleep, a haze of golden stubble on his chin and cheeks. "Callista?"

She looked him over, taking in the rumpled state of his thin shirt and the disheveled way his hair fell across his forehead, suddenly acutely aware of the warm pressure of his fingers against her arm. His sword belt and scabbard were flung incongruously over one shoulder. "Put some clothes on," she advised, tugging away in consternation at her own reaction.

He blinked and glanced down as though expecting to find he'd forgotten his pants, releasing her arm. "What?"

Callista shrugged, mingled relief and disappointment at the broken contact quickly transmuting into annoyance. "I suppose if you want to fight Scourge in your pajamas, that's really up to you…"

"What are you…" His brow creased, then he paled as an eddy in the crowd revealed the crushed remains of a ghoul. "Light," he muttered. He shook his head, gaze hardening. "Where's Wynda and the others? Has anyone seen Captain Verner?"

"Trying to get all those people back into their rooms, and no, no one – "

The rest of her words were lost as the background murmur of voices rose in pitch, shrieks building into a wave. People jostled blindly past her, and though some had the presence of mind to jump into open rooms and slam the doors shut, many continued past her to flee up onto the deck. Which was, Callista suspected, a very bad idea.

"Hey! Don't go up there!" she shouted, only to be completely ignored.

Sir Aren must have been of much the same mind, because she watched him try to grab the arm of a stumbling dwarf woman only to earn a set of knuckles to the ribs for his concern.

A man in an embroidered nightshirt tripped, landing almost on Callista's boots, and she narrowed her eyes. Oh, honestly now, this was ridiculous.

She flicked her hand in a terse gesture, magic flaring. A wall of black fire that rippled blue at its edges sprang up across the stairwell, causing the nearest passengers to skid back on their heels.

The flame was almost entirely an illusion, just a twisting of shadows, but _they_ didn't know that. She watched in satisfaction as the man in the nightshirt looked over his shoulder, then to the blazing stairwell, then yelped and scrambled on hands and knees into an unlocked room. Much more sensible.

Sir Aren flinched at the sudden dark conflagration, then seemed to realize what she'd done (the planks beneath the fire weren't even singed) and nodded to himself. "Follow me!" he called to her, buckling the belt around his rumpled shirt and half drawing his sword from its scabbard.

Typical paladin. Fighting zombies in his underclothes it was. For a moment she considered taking point, since the enchantments woven into her robes would provide far better protection than Sir Aren's thin linen, but she was hopeless at hand to hand fighting anyway. Instead she fell in behind him as he shoved through the press of passengers still looking for safety, craning her head to try to see what had frightened them. Not that she couldn't guess. Ghastly moans and the ring of steel echoed from further down the passageway.

They broke through quickly, most of the crowd having abandoned the hallway, and Callista caught a brief glimpse of a forest of broken, bloodstained teeth beneath unseeing eyes before a flash of blue light obliterated her vision.

She cursed and stumbled against the wall, rubbing at the bright spots swimming in her eyes as shouts and pained wails clashed around her.

Luckily the blindness was short-lived, and when the arcane glow faded she found a glittering wall of ice blocking the corridor from floor to ceiling. Frost rimed the walls around it and her breath came in white pants of mist.

"Luciel!" Nathanial called, shouting through hands cupped against the crystalline barrier. "Luciel!"

"She's on the wrong side, you idiot!" Ander cried, whirling with a snarl on a man clad in wrinkled yellow robes.

Sir Aren stepped forward to grab him around both forearms, arresting his leap at the alarmed-looking mage. "Hold, Ander!" he said, a steel in his voice Callista had never heard before. "What's happened here?"

Wynda stepped forward, black blood spattered in an arc across her breastplate and cheek, expression grim. "Ghouls came up through the galley corridor, at least a dozen. We tried to get there in time, but…" She shook her head, wiping gore from her face with the back of a gauntlet. "Too many frightened people. This mage here raised the barrier, but not everyone was on the right side. Including Luciel." She shot the yellow-robed man a hard look at that.

Sir Aren nodded, sliding his sword into its scabbard but letting a hand rest on the hilt. "What's your name, mage? Can you undo your ice?"

The mage was a tall, gangly sort, hair streaked with grey, and when he raised a hand to tug down the sleeve of one arm Callista noticed the Academy signet ring on his finger. "I am Magister Sabrice. And no, no, I'm afraid the magic doesn't work like that."

A muscle in Sir Aren's jaw tightened, but he didn't press him further. "Callista, can you – "

"Not without burning down this ship." She only had half an eye on the paladin, unable to tear her gaze away from the translucent plug of ice. Dark shapes lurched in its depths, but the movements were too unfocused to be a battle. Nothing on that side could possibly be alive anymore.

Magister Sabrice seemed to notice her for the first time, eyes narrowing on the runes sewn into her robes, and his posture stiffened. "The black flames were yours, then. I should've guessed."

"If I may interrupt." Vorthaal stepped forward, face lit by the purple-tinged glow from the crystal head of his warhammer. He must've shared Wynda's habit of sleeping in his leathers because he was clad in them now, a small pendant of wrought silver and green gems that Callista assumed was enchanted hanging against his chest. "Luciel is a warrior, and she will not expect aid we cannot give. We should use this time to prepare, because there will be more."

"Sound advice," Sir Aren said, but from the way his eyes lingered on the frost-veined ice it was obvious that the idea of leaving Luciel to her fate, however necessary, didn't sit easy. "Wynda. Callista. Stay here with the magister while the rest of us – "

"With all due respect, I can't stay here," the mage said, tugging absently at his sleeve again as he watched the shadows move behind the frozen barrier. "My students will – "

"Be perfectly safe inside their room," Sir Aren finished for him. "I won't ask you to stay long, just until the rest of us are ready."

The mage still didn't look pleased, but with Wynda edging casually up to his side to lean against her hammer he had few places to go. "Very well," he said sourly.

"Thank you." Sir Aren's gaze flicked around the corridor, halting briefly on Nathanial and Ander's piecemeal armor and Vorthaal's leathers before he turned. "Come on. We'll arm ourselves properly and then split up to look for the crew."

"Why not have _her_ do it?" Magister Sabrice asked sharply, jabbing a finger at Callista. "Don't you have an Eye, girl?"

Startled, Callista narrowed her eyes at the mage's long pale finger pointing at her chest. "Actually, yes." She could, in fact, conjure an Eye of Kilrogg, and she'd intended to use it, but it was an odd thing for an instructor at the Academy of Arcane Arts to be familiar with. "A kind of scrying," she explained in response to Sir Aren's blank look. "I can try it, but I'll be blind to anything happening in front of me."

"Don't worry your head, lass," Wynda said, clapping her on the arm with a gauntleted hand hard enough to make her wince. "Anything nasty pops up and I'll give you a nudge."

"Thanks for that," Callista said wryly as she rubbed her stinging arm.

"Alright then," Sir Aren said. His eyes met hers just long enough to make her skin prickle oddly before he jerked his gaze away, seeming to study a line of ichor trickling down the woodgrain perilously close to his bare toes. "See what you can see. We'll be back soon." He turned then, nudging his belt back up with his knuckles (his linen pants didn't have loops and the weight of the scabbard kept dislodging it), and padded down the hall with Vorthaal and the Redbranches in tow.

Resisting the urge to follow his retreating back (and what was Sir Aren to her anyway, she'd never liked paladins) Callista took one last look around the corridor before she began her spell, marking for the first time the copious smears of blood on the floor. There were no bodies to be seen, however, and she assumed they all must be locked behind that glistening core of ice. Poor unlucky fools. At least the screaming had stopped.

Green mist drifted between her cupped palms and began to coalesce as she focused, spinning into a glowing chartreuse ball. She couldn't help but notice Magister Sabrice's stare fastened to her spellwork, and met his eyes squarely, unappreciative of the attention. "You have quite an interest in fel magic for an Academy mage."

He jumped a little at the observation, pulling more insistently at his sleeve, but recovered quickly. "Unless I'm much mistaken, I could say the same for you, young lady," he said sternly. "Oh, I don't know who you are," he continued, waving a hand dismissively at her surprised expression, "but that curtain of black flame…illusory, of course…" He examined her face more closely, as though searching for some familiar feature despite his last statement. "One of Jessera's tricks. Not that I mean to impugn her by implying she dabbles in the fel, because no, no, of course she wouldn't. But the principles are the same, yes? You studied under her once."

He had her there. Callista was thrown off-balance enough by the sudden reminder of her old instructor to almost lose focus on her spell, the sphere of green mist wobbling before righting itself in its spin. "Not since I was fifteen."

He clucked his tongue at her. "She'd be disappointed at what you've become, I think."

Callista scoffed, collecting herself once again. She didn't like to be reminded of her mage training, memories tinged as they were with embarrassment and old guilt, but she'd set that path aside long ago. "Yes, she looked quite annoyed the day she expelled me…"

"Oh." He didn't seem to have much to say to that, which was just as well because she'd finished her conjuring and the switch of perspective it caused when she blinked was distracting.

Clearing the last of the irritation from her mind, she closed her eyes, switching her vision to that of the sphere of green light nestled in her palms. She saw the ebbing black flames at the mouth of the stairwell over the tips of her own fingers, then the hard glitter of starlight as she sent the Eye up above decks with a flick of a thought.

There was no blood on the stairs, but it lay up top in blotches that gleamed with silver moonlight, already congealing around ragged lumps she didn't care to examine too closely. All those people who had fled upwards…slain now, obviously. But where were the bodies? Callista didn't like any of the possible answers.

She directed her Eye on a quick lap of the deck, rolling it to stare up into the rigging and the billowing forest of sails.

No movement anywhere. No shambling undead, but no crew either…which meant no one was sailing this ship. Callista swore inwardly, hoping they'd already cut far enough away from shore to avoid reefs. Gut twisting with suspicion, she sent the Eye on a quick pass near the lifeboats, but all still appeared to be lashed down beneath their tarps. So, where were the sailors? Her mind jumped queasily back to all that blood.

The Eye completed its circuit as it returned to the forecastle stairs, hovering in place as Callista hesitated. Captain's quarters, or try the hold? The hold was larger; she'd start there.

The bright moonlight dimmed to black as her Eye descended the stairs, but it didn't matter. Magical vision didn't need it. She nudged the Eye up to the ceiling and then forward, slowly because she'd never ventured down below the passenger quarters and she didn't want to miss a cross-passage, alert for the milky shine of ghostlit eyes.

Nothing to see but sealed crates and stillness.

Wait…one of them must have splintered. Pieces of wood littered the floor, and beyond it she saw dark stains on the planks. Were the undead raiding the cargo? That didn't make sense. They were _dead. _What could they possible need? Her Eye edged closer, knotted wood gliding past below.

A flash of algae-streaked bone, claws gouging at her face –

Callista yelped and stumbled backwards against slick ice, hands scrabbling for purchase as her vision flickered back to the blood-smeared corridor. Wynda whipped her head around at the noise, concern on her face, while Magister Sabrice simply looked ill.

"Plaguing hells," she muttered, righting herself and giving her head a sharp shake. She rubbed her palms against her robes, trying to chafe back the warmth the glacial barrier had stolen. That ghoul's strike had dispelled her Eye, and oh, that wasn't right at all. No mindless undead should've even noticed her scrying. All they cared about was the warm reek of flesh, and an Eye of Kilrogg had none of that. No, this had nothing to do with hunger.

_Something _was down there…and now it knew that she was here, too.


	8. Shadow of the Past

He should've let her burn them.

The thought kept circling through Aren's mind as he pulled shut the door to his quarters, shield clanking against the back of his cuirass. He should've argued harder, shouldn't have been so eager to avoid conflict. He could've stopped all of this. One cleansing blanket of flame laid down across the waves, and all of those people – _Luciel _– would still be alive.

He shook his head violently to dislodge the thought. Well, it was too late for that now. He'd made a mistake, and now there was nothing to do but stop anyone else from suffering because of it.

Vorthaal and the Redbranches waited midway down the corridor. The planks were free of gore and mangled corpses at this end, and their array of plate and chainmail and unsheathed weapons jarred with the inn-like surroundings.

Ander leaned against a red-painted door, inspecting the blades of his short poleaxe, but looked up with a grin at his approach. "There he is! Let's hurry before our warlock lights them all up without us again." His tone was flippant, but there was something savage in his eyes. For all he played the silly fop, Ander was a dangerous fighter, and he'd been fond of Luciel.

"I wish she would," Nathanial muttered, pulling tight the strap of one of his gauntlets. He'd never shared his brother's bloodlust, even before he had a wife to return home to, and Aren sometimes wondered if he'd stay on with the Dawn after his enlistment was up. He loved his brother, but soldiering wouldn't provide the kind of life he knew he wanted for his family.

Vorthaal, even more a cipher than usual behind the ornate grill of his mask, silently stepped aside to let Aren pass and then fell in behind.

Aren loosened his sword in his scabbard, comforted by the familiar roughness of the grip. Someone had lit the lanterns hanging from hooks hammered into the bulkheads, and it took effort not to jump as every roll of the waves made the shadows jerk.

A shriek echoed from the main corridor.

His sword leapt into his hand before he realized he'd drawn it, and he was dimly aware of Ander's answering roar behind him as he broke into a sprint, blood pounding in his ears. This was all too familiar. The moldy smell of flesh arrested in its decay, the cries of defenseless people being slaughtered – that scream didn't belong to any of his company. Had ghouls broken into one of the rooms?

An unearthly growl halted him in his tracks as he barreled around the corner into the main corridor. Blunt scaled head, mouthful of pointed teeth, twin spines arcing over the shoulders...the felhound stopped snarling at the door and spun to face him, long hackles rising.

He'd fought these before, too. Hillsbrad, after Dalaran fell. A corpse-choked ford and the green glare of infernals overhead, the body beside him – _Sir Conrad_ – rising again with head hanging crookedly and no light in its eyes. The cruel laugh of a creature with bloodied claws.

He swung his shield from his back and held it low to deter a lunge at his knees, sword poised to lash out.

"Heel, Jhormug!"

_Jhormug?_ He flinched at the voice. Callista. Warlock, _his_ warlock. A ship, not a battlefield; a human woman, not a dreadlord. This wasn't an enemy, it was a _pet_.

The felhound backed up slowly, a barely-audible growl rumbling in its throat as its tentacles quested in his direction.

He waited for Callista to grab a handful of the long spikes on the thing's shoulders before slinging his shield onto his back again, lowering his sword. "We heard screaming," he said, flicking his eyes from the felhound to the door it had been nosing.

Callista shrugged. "Someone thought it was a good idea to stick her head out."

"So you set a _demon_ on her?"

"Oh, Jhormug wasn't going to bite. Unlike a ghoul."

That made a twisted kind of sense, and though he had the nagging feeling it violated some core principle of the Argent Dawn, he couldn't quite seem to pin down which one. He raised a brow at Wynda, who shrugged plate-clad shoulders laconically. "It keeps them inside, lad."

He supposed it did at that. He shook his head. "What about your scrying?"

The warlock's amused expression soured as her brow wrinkled, and the felhound shifted restlessly as her fingers tightened on its spines. "There's something in the hold, and it's not a ghoul. It recognized my Eye."

Aren frowned. "You couldn't see what it was?"

"No. I didn't even get close. A ghoul broke the enchantment as soon as my Eye left the stairwell. Something had to be directing it – most undead won't attack anything that doesn't smell alive."

That was true, and Aren knew it better than most. Her news, though unwelcome, was not entirely unexpected. If those ghouls had been masterless they would've immediately started breaking down doors, not slinking around the passenger deck like thieves. "No sign of the crew?"

"None." She hesitated, yanking at her minion's spines as it nosed in the direction of the yellow-robed mage. "There was a lot of blood upstairs."

In the silence that followed, the uncomfortable creak of armor behind him seemed loud as a dirge.

"So, who here can rig a sail?" Ander wondered.

"None of that, lad," Wynda said, casting a meaningful glance at the closed doors around them. "They may just be barricaded in somewhere."

"Without their _blood_?"

"_Ander_."

"Alright," Aren cut in before the argument could escalate. "Nathanial, Vorthaal and Ander. Look for the crew. Start on the top deck and work your way downwards, and stay out of the hold until you've tried everywhere else. The rest of you…"

Wynda swung her hammer onto her shoulder at his regard, its inscriptions still glimmering with faint golden light. Callista cocked her head, while the beast at her side sank into a crouch and snarled, reaction made more alarming by the fact the felhound didn't even have eyes to watch him with.

"That thing can track magic," he said, studying it warily. "How well?"

"More than well enough to find what's down there." Her gaze slid to the nervous-looking mage pressed up against one of the crimson doors. "Once we're away from distractions."

Magister Sabrice fidgeted with the sleeve of his robe and scowled at the felhound. "Don't worry, girl, I won't be anywhere near when you let that creature go. One word of caution before I vanish: whatever dispelled your Eye has discovered there's a warlock aboard. This won't be as easy as you think."

She snorted, eyeing the mage with clear distaste. "Unless it has a Legion houndmaster down there, this will be exactly as easy as I think."

"And how easy is that?" Ander piped up.

She shrugged her shoulders skeptically. The warlock had forgone the spikes and skulls favored by many of her brethren, but the red runes picked out across her robes twisted in ways strongly suggestive of chains. "Probably difficult and unpleasant."

Vorthaal's thick tail cleaved the air and his eyes glowed impatiently beneath his helm as he looked towards the stairwell. "We should leave."

"Yes, you should," Magister Sabrice agreed. He turned to pound a fist against the door he'd been leaning on. "Dinah and Claire! Come outside!"

After a brief delay the door creaked open and a mousy-brown head poked out. The girl looked around nervously before slipping into the corridor, a taller black-haired girl following at her heels.

"Once you're gone we'll lay wards," the magister explained. "Dinah! Come over here. Start tracing frost runes along these walls."

The brown-haired girl edged to the section of bulkhead he pointed to, though her eyes remained fastened to Callista's felhound. Its tentacles waved towards her with desultory interest, but at least the beast didn't growl the way it had at him. Aren didn't blame her for her caution. He'd seen felhounds eat mages, sucking them dry of all magical potential before ripping their bodies to shreds, and though this one was under control, its instincts were no different from those of the fiends that had swarmed the countryside after the wrack of Dalaran. The sooner they were away from here, the better.

"Come on," he said, motioning towards the stairwell with a gauntleted hand.

Callista released her grip on the felhound's spines and it bounded ahead, pausing only to snuffle at the limp corpse of a ghoul whose head appeared to have burst outward. Ichor and bone fragments spattered the planks from floor to ceiling, and it licked curiously at them with a thick black tongue before loping onwards.

Aren grimaced as he strode through the mess. Battle magic – fel, arcane or otherwise – may have been efficient, but in the end it was no cleaner or more merciful than a sword-thrust. That it so often allowed its practitioners to kill from a distance without sullying their hands or looking their enemies in the eye, he wasn't sure he considered a blessing.

They all paused on the landing, arms sliding into shield braces and swords hissing from scabbards.

"Good hunting," Nathanial said with a wan smile.

Ander tested the weight of his crescent-blade tipped poleaxe with a feral grin. "Last one back to the galley buys first round."

Aren slung his own kite shield down from his back, slipping his arm through the brace and feeling a comforting warmth flow over him as the blessing inscribed into the metal flared to life. The corner of his mouth quirked tolerantly at Ander's posturing and he raised a brow. "Light go with you…but watch your backs like it won't."

Callista had been lifting down one of the lanterns dangling from hooks in the wall, and he noted the way she paused and flung a sidelong glance at him from the corner of his eye. The fact he'd managed to say something that surprised her filled him with an odd kind of satisfaction.

Vorthaal must have noticed her look, too, because he smiled behind the protective grill of his helm. "It is sometimes wise to temper faith with practicality…and vice-versa, yes?" He met Aren's eyes and dipped his helmed head in acknowledgement before turning. "Naaru guide your path." Leading the two Redbranch brothers, he climbed up into the rectangle of star-studded night above.

"Sure you can manage that, lass?" Wynda asked, watching as Callista slid down all but one of the lantern's shutters. Light flickered from the open side in a bright wedge.

"It'll be fine." She shifted the lantern to her left hand and angled it to illuminate the dark stairs sinking into the hold. Her felhound had bounded halfway down and stopped to wait, but it snarled impatiently as the light fell on it, spiny hackles up and eyeless head tracking some invisible motion below. It crouched awkwardly on its haunches, the stairwell much too cramped for a creature the size of a large wolf. "Most of the hand-waving is just a focusing aid. Or for show, but zombies are notoriously hard to impress."

The dwarf snorted. "I always knew the lot of you might as well have been making hand puppets."

"I'll go first and Wynda, you take rear," Aren said, unsettled by the way the felhound seemed to be fixated on something no one else could see. "Callista, try to stay between us. Unless you have any skill with a weapon?"

"On a good day, I drop them on my _enemy's_ toes, and on an excellent day they fall point down." She moved up to stand behind his right shoulder, a bright glitter of lamplight in her eyes. "But don't worry, they rarely get close enough to find that out."

Aren laughed quietly, but he hoped that wasn't just bluster. The warlock had said she wasn't a mercenary, and he realized he had no idea if she'd ever seen a true battle at all. Reading a spell from a grimoire in a quiet study was one thing, but summoning the concentration to cast it in a fight while claws and blades flew at your throat was something entirely different. Then again, she'd clearly caused the demise of that ghoul with the burst skull, and she didn't look frightened now.

"There's something hiding at the bottom of the stairs, by the way," she murmured. "Let Jhormug go first."

He nodded and moved onto the first step, following the wobbly beam of lantern-light. The felhound waited until they were almost on top of it and then took the remaining stairs in a leap, planks creaking in protest. It vanished from the pool of light and an unearthly howl shivered back in its wake, quickly joined by the dry snarls of the undead.

Aren ran down the stairwell, jumping the last step and landing with sword out and shield angled defensively towards the noise. Outside of the lantern's yellow glow the darkness yawned like an abyss, and he stared blindly, trying to pivot to cover his flanks and waiting for Callista to arrive with the light.

She didn't.

Wynda's yell echoed above him and the sickly smack of metal striking rotten flesh followed. The beam of light arced wildly as Callista spun to face the attack, flashing briefly across his face, and that moment squashed any intention of retreating to help as it lit the gaping mouth of the ghoul springing for his throat with lurid fireglare.

He thrust upward with his shield, catching the corpse across the chin with the scalloped top and flinging it away. He lunged after it as he strained his eyes against the dark, stumbling over its thrashing legs and then chopping down once, twice, severing thigh muscles in a spray of cool blood before slamming his armored boot down on its chest.

Bony claws scrabbled at his greaves but couldn't find purchase, the ghoul's eyes glowing with empty light as it tried to crane its head around to bite.

Sickened, Aren raised his sword to drive the point down through one of those ghostlit sockets, but the blow went wild as a heavy weight crashed into his back and clung there.

He stumbled, lank hair that reeked of salt water and rot whipping across his cheek as a ghoul raked claws across his breastplate, seeking the soft flesh between the joins. Jamming his shield against the planks to catch his fall, he stabbed backwards with the pommel of his sword, feeling the snap of bones as the leather-wrapped steel connected.

A feral growl close to his ear. Sudden hot pain as a claw raked across his lip and cheek, scoring deep gouges, then his arm was jarred as the edge of his sword connected with something solid. He'd reached the wall. Spinning around, he threw himself backwards against the planks, feeling the sudden give as the ghoul's ribs cracked between the bulkhead and his heavy armor.

He dropped his shield and tasted the coppery heat of blood as he reached back and grabbed the ghoul's rotten shoulder, yanking it around and throwing it to the floor as it groaned and lashed at his face.

His sword point darted down, through one glowing eye and twist, and the clawing limbs jerked and went still. The blessings on the blade sizzled with white light as they burned through cursed flesh.

Sudden brightness; he squinted and blinked in the lantern glare as Callista and Wynda appeared around the side of the stairs.

Black gore smeared the other paladin's warhammer and armor, but none of it was her own and her green eyes swept over him with concern. "You alright, lad? Your face is a mess."

Aren prodded the inside of his cheek with his tongue, and though it stung horribly the scratches didn't seem to go all the way through. "I'm just trying not to think about what was on those claws."

"Hopefully nothing worse than cobwebs. They were hiding under the stairs." Wynda closed her eyes as her lips moved silently, the glyphs on her hammer waxing brighter as she reached out to the Light.

"Under the stairs? You're kidding. Light, all of my childhood fears were true." His torn cheek tingled not unpleasantly as her blessing knitted the broken flesh, and he wiped the blood away with the back of his gauntlet.

A loud snap caught his attention. He turned his head to see the felhound lying at Callista's feet, gnawing on something that on (somewhat regrettable) closer inspection turned out to be a mangled torso, still leaking black ichor. The demon had the entire hunk of flesh between its jaws and was biting down slowly, applying gradual pressure so the ribs cracked one by one.

He grimaced as another one snapped like a rifleshot. "_Demons_," he muttered.

Callista had been staring down the dark alley between stacked crates, but she looked over at him at that, and the irritation in her expression startled him. "I get that you're the avenging wrath of the Light and all, but next time could you _try _to wait for the felhound? I know that makes it harder to smite the undead heathens, but it also makes it harder to bleed all over the cargo."

Caught off-guard, he opened his mouth to snap something back, realized he couldn't think of anything to say (besides "but I only bled on myself," which sounded stupid even in his head) and shut it again. He didn't like the way she was looking at him, and he especially didn't like the knack she seemed to have for reducing him to a stammering idiot. Under the guise of a commander's calm detachment, he braced a boot against the shoulder of the slain ghoul still at his feet and yanked his sword free. The tip had gone all the way through the skull and lodged in the wood beneath. "Are you finished?" he finally managed neutrally.

Her only answer was an annoyed narrowing of her eyes. He took that as a "no."

Well, maybe she wasn't, but he was.

He stooped to pick up his shield, looking around at the space revealed by the flickering glare of the lantern. The hold was wide and quite deep – not surprising, since this ship had been contracted from the goblin cartels – and lashed-down crates and barrels were piled almost to the ceiling three man-heights overhead. Narrow passages had been left between them to allow access to the cargo, but like many goblin endeavors, the job had been done haphazardly; the result was a sprawling maze of stacked goods, probably all of which they'd have to explore to root out the undead.

Aren blew out air in a quiet sigh, then squinted as he noticed something glistening midway up one of the towers of crates. Ghoul blood. How had it gotten up there? Looking around for the cause, he noticed with a start that the entire area around the stairwell was splattered with ichor and ragged hunks of flesh. In the dark he hadn't been able to see it. "It ripped them apart," he muttered, somewhere between impressed and disgusted. And she'd been complaining about _his_ blood everywhere.

"Ghouls are magical constructs, and felhunters eat magic," Callista pointed out coolly. Her eyes swept over the crates piled around them, and she opened another panel on the lantern to brighten the light. "He only got three of them anyway."

He was about to ask how she could tell, then he noticed the chewed-off heads, rotted faces frozen with mouths still gaping to bite, tumbled up against a barrel.

"One Sir Aren stabbed, three we killed outside our room, two just now on the stairwell, those three heads – that's disgusting, by the way, lass…" Wynda squinted into the shadows outside their circle of light. "That's a lot of corpses to sneak over the rails with no one noticing."

"There was an enchantment over the ship before," Callista said. The runes on her robes had begun to glow faintly, the color of hot coals against the black. "Fear magic, probably meant to keep everyone inside. Maybe no one was watching."

"Aye, that would do it. No wonder my nerves were crawling."

There'd been a spell on the ship? Aren hadn't known that. If the warlock had sensed it, no wonder the two women had been the first out of their rooms. It galled him to think they'd all been in danger and he'd been about to sleep through it, but he was thoroughly awake now.

He rolled his shoulders under his armor and raised his shield back into a ready position. "We should clear the ghouls out as best we can before we go hunting for…whatever's down here. I don't want to get attacked from behind." He hesitated, glancing at the felhound as it sprang to its feet and licked gore from the coarse fur beneath its jaw. "Send your demon in first."

Callista's mouth quirked at the corner, but she didn't comment on his decision. Instead she jerked her chin at one of the dark lanes between crates, and the felhound bounded from the circle of lantern-light with an eager snarl. Its horn-topped shoulders scraped the barrels on either side as it wriggled through, and he wondered if the beast would have trouble turning to fight. He had no doubt it would manage in the end, but he wondered how much other people's property it would maul in the process.

He shook his head. This time he waited, giving the felhound several heartbeats' head start before striding after it into the gap. His shadow stretched long and black ahead of him, slithering up boxes and over barrels as Callista followed with the lantern. He could hear her soft breathing and the clink of Wynda's armor behind in the silence.

A low growl and the crack of wood splintering sounded from somewhere up ahead. His instinct – born of a time when duty meant drawing danger away from those more helpless than himself – was to run towards the battle, but he held himself in check. There were no wounded or weary villagers behind him now, just a pair of colleagues who could look after themselves. That demon didn't need his help either.

A chorus of snarls, one bestial and the rest ragged with undeath, another loud snap and something shattered like glass.

"Oooh, that sounded expensive," Callista observed.

"Should we go after it?" he wondered, grimacing as the growls and glass-like crunching continued.

She laughed. "To help Jhormug? Absolutely not. What's the Light's take on letting merchants die of apoplexy?"

Aren knew he shouldn't encourage her. He was sure the proper response was a humorless remark on holy doctrine, but he and so many of his order had lived under a pall of old guilt for so long that something about her gleeful unrepentance was catching. He smiled involuntarily in the dark, and the words were out before better judgment caught up with his mouth. "Blessed are the poor?"

Her genuine chortle of surprised laughter was worth Wynda's disbelieving snort.

He stepped around a twist in the passage, kicking aside a coil of rope the felhound had tangled in its headlong rush. Lantern-light glittered iridescent from the smashed remnants of what looked to have been wine decanters, smeared with black gore. A pair of mangled corpses lay in the middle of the decimated crate, but the demon appeared to have taken its rampage elsewhere.

"Quel'thalas," Wynda grunted, flipping one of the larger splinters over with her boot to read the markings.

"Told you it sounded expensive," Callista said. She looked subtly amused at the mess, running her sole over the broken glass so it tinkled like chimes.

Wynda shoved the most jagged pieces aside disapprovingly with the head of her hammer. "Blasted goblins shouldn't be ferrying Horde goods on a ship chartered by Stormwind anyway."

Aren brushed past Callista on his way back into the lead, ears pricked for more sounds of fighting from up ahead, then flinched as an eerie howl rose to fill the whole hull. Light, that demon could make some awful sounds. He probably would've ignored it as another of its quirks, but he was close enough to the warlock to see her face pale a shade beneath the lantern's glow.

"Uh-oh," she muttered.

"It found it, didn't it?" he asked quietly, not needing to see her nod to know it was true.

The screech of tearing wood, something metal clattered and tumbled down to the planks and more unearthly baying rose from the felhound, though the noise seemed to be moving away.

Callista narrowed her eyes as she focused on something distant, closing the shutters on the lantern so only a sliver of light bled through. "Jhormug will try to lead it away, but eventually it will corner him or turn. What do you want to – "

Creaks and thumps echoed from behind them, as though some thing or things had stumbled down the stairs at a run.

"Twisting _Nether_!" she breathed vehemently.

Wynda turned, dipping one armored shoulder back the way they'd come, and the first ghoul to scrabble though the narrow gap between crates met a powerful blow of her warhammer with its head. It crumpled to a black-stained pile of carrion and didn't move again.

Light blazed from the head of her hammer, dimming the lantern's weak fire and burning away shadows as more ghouls crowded into the passage, clawing each other in their frenzy to tear flesh.

Aren was sickened by the sight. These weren't the desiccated and salt-streaked corpses from that poor doomed relic of Lordaeron, these bodies were fresh; their flesh was still plump and mostly whole and red blood soaked damp into their clothes. It made the blind hunger in their gnashing teeth even more terrible, and he tried not to look at the faces for fear he'd recognize the twisted visage of someone he'd once smiled at in the galley.

Wynda met the charge without faltering, the force of her Light-touched swings snapping bones and sinew and driving the ghouls back, aided in no small part by the fact the gap was too small to allow more than two to squeeze through at a time. Unfortunately, it was also too small to allow Aren or Callista to lend her much help.

Aren winced as another howl split the air.

"I've got this lot!" Wynda panted between hammer blows. A corpse stumbled over the wreck of one of its fellows, and she used the pause to crush the neck of another felled ghoul with her plated boot heel. "Go find that fiend before its yelping turns my head to pudding."

Callista barked a laugh, then looked at the shuttered lantern in her hand before setting it down onto a crate. "I'm leaving you the light. Follow when you can."

Aren glanced once back at Wynda – still standing firmly as stone – then instinctively reached out to grab Callista's arm as she pressed past him. "Wait!"

He didn't notice her palm against his breastplate until she shoved gently, and then he was suddenly surprised by how tall she was – even this close, she only had to tilt her head a little to meet his eyes.

"You can't go first if you don't know where we're going," she pointed out, sliding her fingers beneath his gauntleted ones to pry his hand off her arm.

That was true, and he was sure she was better able to track her own familiar than he was, but sending an unarmored woman first through a maze stalked by ravenous monsters still sat ill with him. He released her reluctantly. "Just be – "

The howl this time was different. Not a warning, but something dark and pleased and vicious, the fel-tainted ancestor of every wolf-cry that ever drove fear into the night.

Some old half-buried instinct urged Aren to cower, while another, fresher, told him to get up and run with the hunt. He didn't realize he'd bared his teeth until Callista's laugh broke the spell.

A fist-sized ball of orange flame hovered near her shoulder, and though it illuminated the amusement in her smile, beneath it was something darker. Veiled savagery lit her eyes, and what ties did demon-pacts bind to their makers, anyway?

"Felhounds don't like to flee," she said, flicking her gaze towards the sound with fierce satisfaction. "They'd rather hunt."

He suspected they weren't the only ones.

The ball of fire danced before them as they slipped between piles of cargo, Callista in the lead and Aren almost treading on her heels as he tried to stay close enough to yank her behind his shield in case of an attack. Sweat from his earlier exertions dried cool against his skin, and he fought a shiver, as much from the chill as the fading sounds of combat behind them. Wynda was good, but that didn't mean he wasn't concerned. He wondered how Vorthaal and the twins were doing looking for the crew. Hopefully their disturbance in the hold had drawn most of their enemies downward and away from the search.

The felhound hadn't made another sound since that last blood-stirring howl, but Callista seemed sure of her route, squeezing around crates that protruded from the stacks easily without bulky armor to impede her. Her floating fireball didn't illuminate very far around the twists in the passage, and he wished she'd slow down a little. They'd never notice any ghouls until they were right on top of –

Callista's alarmed hiss jolted him, and he reacted on instinct, shouldering past her and angling his shield across the gap as he felt something fiery cold sear along the edge of his gauntlet. He flinched, and only long training kept him from dropping his sword at the sudden pain. He leveled the tip at where he'd caught a glimpse of the white-lit eyes of a ghoul, then lowered it in surprise as the fireball's bobbing light allowed him a better look at it. Or rather, what was left of it. Half its head had been burned away as though dipped in acid, decayed flesh still smoking around the blasted hole where its face should have been.

"Are you insane?"

He turned sheepishly at Callista's expostulation, flexing his stinging fingers to confirm there was no real damage. "Maybe." He hesitated, looking again at the corroded mess that had once been a ghoul's head, and repressed a shiver as he pictured his own flesh in its place. "Sorry. I never served much with mages, not even in...not even before. It...takes some getting used to."

She scowled at him, the chains of runes on her robes pulsing brighter after the sudden flare of magic. "Just because I'm not wearing half an armory doesn't mean I need to be rescued." She jabbed a finger at the sizzling wreck of the ghoul's skull. "That could've been you!"

The ring and pinky fingers of his right gauntlet had been etched black by her spell (thank the Light the blessings had held), and he tried surreptitiously to rotate his hand so she wouldn't notice how close a call he'd actually had.

It was a mistake; the movement only drew her gaze. "Twisting Nether, doesn't that hurt? I hope it – no, never mind, I hope it _does_," she said, narrowing her eyes on the dark burn.

Aren wasn't sure if he should be offended by that or not. On the one hand, it was a rather harsh thing to say to someone who had, after all, been acting in good faith, but on the other he thought he actually sensed a flicker of concern beneath her scolding. Then again, maybe her only concern was not facing a court-martial for striking her commanding officer from behind if he leaped in front of another of her spells. "It doesn't," he said mulishly, "but it won't happen again."

"Good." She seemed satisfied with that, turning and picking her way carefully around the mutilated corpse. "Come on, and for Light's sake, stop stepping on my heels."

So, she'd noticed that too. Repressing another sheepish look, he followed at a more prudent distance, flattening himself out against a crate to navigate a particularly tight corner.

He jumped as something cracked like a river in a flash freeze, and the felhound's growl rumbled from ahead just as a protruding nail snagged one of the joins in his breastplate. He muttered an oath as it jerked him up short then screeched free of the wood after a moment's sharp tugging.

Even that brief delay was enough to allow Callista to vanish from sight around a turn. He jogged faster to catch up, hairs on his neck rising as the felhound's snarls became more insistent and a tense frisson of magic surged in the air.

The red glimmer of runes caught his eye as he contorted around a turn, and he pulled up just as Callista's arm shot out across his chest to stop him.

She held a finger to her lips for silence, then jerked her head farther down the passage.

Aren nodded and edged carefully past her to take a look, crouching behind a pyramid of lashed-together kegs to lower his profile. What he saw on its other side drew a disgusted grimace.

The cargo had been cleared up ahead in a crooked circle, gaps that led to the rest of the hold winding from it like the spokes of a deformed wheel. Callista's felhound growled near the entrance roughly across, teeth bared and muscles bunched as though gathering for a leap, but it was trapped in its spring by a block of glistening ice that sheathed its entire hindquarters. There was nothing it could do but snap and snarl hatefully at its tormentor, visible to Aren only as a hunched, thin figure in tattered purple robes. The Eye of Dalaran, smudged and spotted with mold, stared at him from its back.

All this was revealed by the sickly violet light that arced from the necromancer's hands. It struck the felhound in its exposed chest and forelegs, scouring its flesh away in a welter of blood and pitted bone before the demon's natural affinity for magic kicked in, draining the power to rebuild its decayed flesh only to have it ripped away again. One of its forelegs collapsed as death magic overwhelmed demonic regeneration, and it pitched forward, only to stagger up again with a baleful growl as its tendons reknitted.

Aren had never had any love for demons, but the sight made him ill anyway. He backed up quietly to where Callista waited and moved close to her ear to whisper. "Hit it with whatever you have and I'll move in after. If it's still alive, use any openings you see."

Her eyes were grey and hard as flint as she looked at him. "Alright. But if I tell you to get out of the way…"

The anger lacing her voice didn't actually appear to be directed at him, and Aren was struck by a sudden thought: that demon was bound to her. Could she feel what was happening to it? The idea was horrifying. He lifted his gauntlet to show her the black scorch mark. "Once was enough."

She nodded, and her mouth twitched in a faint smile. She let him go first this time, slipping in behind him and dimming her floating fireball to a bright spark.

It wasn't necessary anyway, the glow of spell-light bright enough to throw tortured shadows from the cargo around them.

A staticky shiver ran across his skin as Callista began gathering whatever magic she meant to unleash, and Aren reflexively tightened his fingers around the pommel of his sword. He'd never liked mage battles. Those few he'd seen counted as some of his worst memories of war, cowering in the muddy crater of an infernal strike with a handful of frightened people as the world shook around them and the sky rained fire. Whether the combatants were true mages or the demonic warlocks of the Burning Legion made small difference in the end; the forces they loosed on the battlefield couldn't be fought by anyone without magical or divine assistance, and ranks of common soldiers, no matter how experienced or well-trained, became little more than collateral damage.

He ducked back down behind the roped pile of kegs as Callista slipped to one side of it, shadows with the toxic sheen of oil twisting around her arms.

Purple light still flared from the necromancer's spell. Aren stared at the stained sigil of the Eye on his robes and felt cold anger well up within him. Once of Dalaran and now a servant of the undead – those refugees would've been so relieved to find a mage of the Violet Citadel on board, when he'd probably loaded that plagued grain into the hold himself.

A roar like the howl of a firestorm assaulted his ears, but there was no light. Aren flinched and crouched down farther as shadow that danced and clawed like flame engulfed the robed figure and obliterated the purple glow.

The necromancer gave a hoarse yell that quickly burbled off, and after that there was nothing but silence and blackness as Aren shoved away from the barrels with sword bared and sprang for where he'd seen him fall. Dark blinded him, but it didn't matter; he raised his blade, and suddenly light blazed as Callista's fireball rose to hover near the ceiling like a miniature sun.

His sword swept down towards the neck of the crumpled figure just as it turned its head to reveal the washed-out glow of ghostlight in its eyes. "Paladin," it sneered as it raised a tattered hand.

Something struck Aren in the chest like a giant mailed fist, and he flew backwards to crash into a crate in a flurry of splinters, disoriented and struggling to draw air into his bruised lungs. He coughed and choked as he groped for his sword, watching in growing horror as the necromancer lurched to his feet.

The warlock's spell had flayed away all the flesh on his right side and jaw, leaving nothing but bile-stained bone and the white gleam of teeth. That same spell still had hold of him, and shadow like dark fire clung to his chest as it ate away skin and the frayed fabric of his robes. The rank smell of seared and rotten meat fouled the air and made Aren's coughing worse.

"Ah, a colleague," the necromancer said, pulling the remaining flesh of his face up into a ghastly smile. A hoarse whistling accompanied his speech, and Aren realized with disgust that the demon-spell had vaporized his right lung.

"Absolutely not," Callista sneered. She stood to Aren's right near the gap they'd entered from, the glyphs on her robes smoldering. As he watched, she clenched her fist and the shadowy fire flickering from the necromancer's chest leapt hungrily, drawing another choked gurgle.

Her eyes widened in alarm as, instead of falling, he gave a raspy laugh. "Not very civil."

He waved a ravaged hand and an icy gale swept into the room, freezing Aren's breaths into white clouds as frost grew like shimmering mold from the necromancer's bones. The shadows devouring him ebbed and died as though smothered.

Callista uttered a sharp curse in a harsh language, and the necromancer laughed at her again. "Your demon-speech won't give _me _pause, warlock. The Scourge no longer kneels to the Legion."

Breathing finally stabilized, Aren gained his feet and shook splinters from his shield. Anger at being so easily flung aside steeled him, dulling the pain in his bruised muscles. "No one wants to see you _kneel_."

He made it within two sword-lengths of the necromancer before lambent dead eyes swept over him dismissively. "Oh. You again."

He caught movement at the edge of his vision and spun. His blade caught the ghoul across its throat, the blessed steel slicing through its neck far more easily than it would've uncorrupted flesh, and the ghoul's head toppled as momentum caused its body to slam into Aren's knees.

He barely kept from stumbling, and it was good he did because ghouls began boiling into the cleared space from one of the gaps between crates, scraping bloodless chunks of their own flesh off against the sides in their eagerness to devour. Hoarse moans tore from their throats as they reached for him.

The best way to keep from being overwhelmed by a charge was to push back even harder; this was why Aren favored the sword and shield over the two-handed warhammer wielded by many of his fellows. He leaned back on his heels, waiting until the grasping corpses were almost on top of him before surging forward while slamming upward with his shield.

The impact jarred through his arm to rattle his teeth painfully. The ghouls, too mindless to brace themselves for the blow, were thrown sprawling back a step, a step Aren quickly closed as he hacked down with his sword and used the edge of his shield as a bludgeon, shattering bones and severing vital muscle. This was another difference between fighting living enemies versus the Scourge: mortals bled out, went into shock, took losses so heavy they surrendered, but every battle with undead was decided only by attrition. And the only way to destroy them was to break their skulls or dismember them so thoroughly they could no longer fight.

He thrust out again with his shield, forearm going numb as a ghoul crashed into the metal and was flung outwards. It tumbled over the planks until it skidded into the still-imprisoned felhound, which bit down on its head and shoulder and _shook_, ripping it in two across the collarbone.

Aren noticed in a brief flash before he spun away that both the felhound's tentacles were fastened to the ice that held it, which was looking more and more insubstantial as the demon's wounds healed.

One of the ghouls he'd crippled in his first charge latched onto his greave, driving bony fingers into the gap behind his knee and trying to pry the armor apart. Aren kicked backwards with his plated boot, snapping its fingers and knocking it away as another leapt and met the point of his sword through one glowing eye.

The light flickered and changed hue crazily, magic sizzling the air as the warlock and necromancer exchanged spells behind him. Hard pressed as he was, Aren could only watch in confusing glimpses – swaths of shadowflame parting neatly around the mangled undead, dark energy ricocheting off a felfire-shot shield to crumble a barrel as though it'd been rotting for a hundred years – he leapt back with a cry as green flames roared in pincer-like arcs to converge on the necromancer, heat searing his face and incinerating the legs of the ghoul whose claws he'd been parrying.

He scuttled instinctively backwards away from the blaze, then toppled hard to the deck as desiccated arms latched around his knees and shoved. The impact tore his sword from his grasp and he kicked wildly, trying to dislodge the ghoul pinning him and barely avoiding the rank jaws of the one lunging for his face. Broken teeth and breath like rotting meat – he lashed out with both gauntleted hands, seizing the decayed head between them and twisting sharply. As the ghoul tumbled from his vision, he noticed three things – the felhound was gone, Callista's felfire had burned through the planks to the glimmering bligewater beneath, and the necromancer was still standing, indifferent to the flames that seared the last of his flesh from his bones in charred curls.

"Fool," he said, voice clear and contemptuous despite the lack of throat. Cold steam issued from his jaws to boil into nothing against the green pillar of flame that raged around him. "The dreadlord Dalvengyr himself chained me to this life. The flesh was just a temporary conceit."

Dalvengyr? Aren knew that name. _The clash of steel, horses screaming in pain. Mud and broken stalks of corn, the hitched breathing of the injured man leaning on his shoulder, rain streaming past his face. They'd been routed. The Scourge had been joined by demons, they'd torn open Sir Conrad's leg and the tourniquet was loose and they needed to get back to the others, oh, Light, the ones they'd left.._. _Blinking back rain, he half-dragged the man at his side through the muddy graveyard that had once been a cornfield. Jagged stalks reached up to trip them, and he grabbed for his sword with his free hand as heard voices up ahead. Human voices. He dropped his hand from his hilt and almost called out, but his relief turned to bile as he registered their words. _

Cultists.

"_They've started burning their dead, and it's thinning our ranks. Lord Dalvengyr won't be pleased – "_

A searing pain in the soft flesh behind his knee wrenched him back to the present. He kicked hard and felt his boot connect with something solid that snapped on impact. The crushing force shackling his leg faltered and he flopped over onto his back, slicing downward with the edge of his shield to hammer back the broken-armed ghoul crouched over him.

Callista laughed behind him, but the defiance in it was strained and she breathed heavily in her pauses. "Dalvengyr? The Alliance kicked his carcass back to the Nether in pieces. I think it's time you joined him…"

"Your little campfire barely warms my bones." Ice-laden wind shrieked between the towers of crates, and a shard laid open Aren's cheek with a burst of agonizing cold as the green felfire glare blew out like a snuffed candle. "Kneel, mortal, and maybe I'll leave some fragment of your mind intact when I turn you."

The words chilled him. Was she all right? He couldn't tell, she sounded pressed but he didn't have time to look – Aren struck downwards again with the edge of his shield as he sat up, the bottom crushing through the undead's sparsely-haired skull in a spray of black blood. He scrambled to his feet and whirled, looking for his dropped sword, then backpedaled in dismay as the ghoul crouched over the weapon let out a ragged growl.

Callista scoffed.

Aren was facing her now, and drew a sharp breath at the way one of her arms hung limp at her side, blood trickling down her temple where she'd failed to deflect an ice shard.

She edged slowly back towards a gap in the crates, and despite the fitful guttering of the felfire around her working hand, she still managed a convincing sneer. "I've heard better."

Maybe she had, but Aren could tell in a glance that she was finished.

Another pack of ghouls emerged from the shadows, deeper now that Callista's illuminating fireball had begun to wane with her strength, and spread out to circle him like hungry wolves. Aren swung his shield around, trying to keep as many of them as possible on his protected side, but the effort was useless. Their jerky movements were coordinated, deliberate, obviously directed by the necromancer that was advancing on Callista even now, and why would he hurry? He would kill her and turn them both, then overwhelm anyone left alive upstairs…

Fury roared up in him at the thought, its violence surprising even himself as his already ragged breaths came faster and his fingers clenched inside his gauntlet. He'd failed before, let this happen to others, but no, not now, not ever again – the ghouls rushed at him as one and he struck out savagely with his shield and his fist. Bones snapped and rancid flesh tore beneath his blows, but there were too many this time. Their cool rotten weight bore him down and he slammed to the planks, nose filled with the scent of blood and decay and armor ringing under the assault of bony claws. He lashed out, trying to fling them loose, but they were too strong and the angle was bad. Ragged teeth snapped at his face, wafting cold breath across his cheek, and in desperate rage, he reached out for the Light.

Not the humble plea of a healer this time – this was a prayer that bordered on a demand, and the power that blazed forth in answer was not gentle.

Golden shafts of Light speared up through the planks around him, drowning the weak flicker of the fireball and searing through undead flesh like avenging flame. Ghouls writhed and died for the final time, bodies dissolving into bright dust as the fel magic that shackled them was purged and left nothing in its wake.

The hands grasping at him withered away and Aren stumbled to his feet, ethereal chimes both sweet and terrible echoing in his ears as the wrath of the Light poured through him. He could feel his grip on it faltering (and how could it not, its judgment was so pure and his own faith so flawed), and the golden radiance died as his will buckled under its torrent.

For one long breath, nothing moved.

Callista stared at him, then at the scoured scatter of bones that had once been a pack of ghouls, then back again as though he'd grown a collection of extra heads.

The necromancer had backed away from the purifying radiance, but now he advanced on Aren. An icy glow suffused the empty holes of his eyes as he moved to the nearest of the gaps Callista's flame had seared in the planks and gazed across it. The blackened strips of flesh still clinging to his skull made the sight even more ghastly than a true skeleton would've been, and the gristle around his mouth twisted in a gruesome shadow of a sneer. "Perhaps I'll end you first after all."

Aren's hands shook, beneath his armor his leathers were drenched with sweat and his head felt light. His sword…he needed to pick it up, but he could never reach it before the necromancer cast whatever twisted spell he had in mind, and if he had to die here he would do it on his feet.

Black energies swirled in the necromancer's skeletal hands, and the temperature of the hold dropped abruptly, a bitter, oily cold that rimed Aren's armor with frost. He raised his shield, inscriptions shining brightly against the chill of unholy magic, but when he reached out towards the Light once more for protection his will faltered, exhausted, and the weak glow he'd managed faded as his vision swam.

He bowed his head behind his shield and breathed one last prayer for forgiveness.

Braced for blistering pain, Aren found himself flinching as a warm gust of wind brushed his face like a benediction and the necromancer howled with rage.

He lowered his shield, startled, and gaped in amazement as the necromancer struggled with his own black skeins of power, now clearly out of control. They cracked through the air like livid whips, one winding up his bony arm and leaving pitted bone and spars of ice in its wake, and the temperature fluctuated wildly as death magic ebbed and surged.

A ball of green fire crackled through the air. It burst against the frozen and spell-decayed bones, shattering the necromancer's arm below the elbow, and he howled again, waving his remaining hand frantically to quell his wayward spell.

Callista. He didn't know what she'd done, but she'd fouled his magic somehow and now he was distracted.

Aren lunged, finally, for his dropped sword, collapsing to his knees as his hand closed around the hilt. He braced his shield against the planks and used it as a crutch to rise again, arm shaking with weariness as he leveled the blade at his enemy.

The necromancer teetered perilously close to one of the blackened holes in the deck, the glitter of dark bilgewater below broken only by the massive wooden beam that formed the spine of the hold, and Aren framed a silent prayer of thanks that it hadn't burned through and crumpled the entire ship like a paper toy.

Callista bared her teeth savagely, another fireball already growing in the palm of her working hand, and though her other arm still hung limp at her side, the exhaustion that had burdened her posture earlier had vanished. It occurred to him in a moment of surprised clarity that the woman had been _faking_.

The fireball exploded against the back of the necromancer's skull and clung there, green flame eating down along the vertebrae, and Aren used the distraction to draw his sword back and edge closer, trying to steady his trembling muscles enough to strike at the blue glow in the monster's ribcage.

A rope of black energy snapped at his face, and he stumbled back, raising his shield.

The dark vortex of the necromancer's loose spell dissipated as he recovered control. He whirled immediately on Callista, the blue lights in his eyes flaring with rage, and an icy bolt of arcane magic rocketed from his hand even before he'd spun all the way around. "Legion _bitch_!" he snarled.

He'd been toying with them before, reveling in his power over what he'd thought to be helpless adversaries, but now he was furious. Ice re-glazed his fingers even before his first spell had struck its target, spinning into a sapphire-hearted ball even larger than the one before.

Callista barely deflected the first bolt with an iridescent net of shadow. Several of its skeins vaporized on impact, and even as it writhed around to catch the next blow, Aren knew it wouldn't hold.

He raised his sword and crouched to leap over the charred hole in the planks, but his legs still trembled with exhaustion and he knew he couldn't make it in time, the pounding of his heart in his ears was unbearable –

Something metallic clanked in time with the throbbing, and he realized with a start that it wasn't his heart at all.

Wynda sprinted past him in a rush of red hair and silver armor, plated boots hammering the deck as she roared something incomprehensible in Dwarven and leapt the gap to barrel into the necromancer in a flying tackle.

His spell went wild, sheathing a roped cask with ice, and he slammed to the deck beneath a furious burden of dwarf and metal. Wynda's hammer was nowhere in sight and so she simply pummeled him with her gauntleted fists, still bellowing what Aren was sure was a litany of curses in her native tongue as they rolled across the deck.

The necromancer had been taken wholly by surprise, skidding helplessly beneath her in a tangle of flesh-streaked bones, but as their slide scraped to a halt a dangerous blue glow began coursing around him once again.

Callista cupped her uninjured hand around her mouth to yell as they finally ground to rest directly above the massive crossbeam that supported the hold, Wynda still pounding her fists against the corpse's frost-crusted bones. "Wynda! Get away from him! _Now_, Wynda, _move_!"

Aren wasn't sure if she was heeding Callista's shout or if she'd simply noticed the ice beginning to layer ominously across the metal of her gauntlets, but she rolled off the thrashing necromancer and onto her feet, leaping back over the gap in the planks to land at Aren's side, panting heavily.

She barely made it – wood rasped and screeched above their heads, and just as the necromancer scrabbled up with a murderous howl, a steel-banded crate plummeted from the stacks overhead. Its reinforced edge crashed through his ribcage and pinned him against the deck in a welter of splinters. The felhound tumbled down on top of it, twisting in the air to land on its horned paws and lunging immediately for the necromancer's free arm.

The undead was down but not destroyed, and his teeth ground furiously as the air froze once again and blades of ice began whirling in gusts. The felhound bit down, wrenching the arm off with a snap, but the deadly storm continued to build.

"Twisting Nether, _cut its head off already_!" Callista yelled, the runes on her robes blazing furiously as she stamped her foot in agitation.

Her voice cut through Aren's numb shock, and he jumped the gap clumsily with sword raised, jamming his shield against the planks to keep from toppling backwards. The skin of his face immediately froze, breath coming in white gasps as he looked into the necromancer's empty blue eyes.

The monster laughed, and even though his face was too ravaged to show emotion he could hear the sneer in his voice. "You lost your kingdom because you were _weak_ –"

His sword whistled down, inscriptions flaring as it severed his neck beneath the first vertebra. The unearthly cold faded with the glow in the necromancer's eyes, but Aren kept swinging his blade even as feeling began stinging back into his face, ignoring the fatigued burn of his muscles until the skull was no more than a pile of chipped bone. He might've kept swinging it forever, until the bones were dust and the planks hacked to splinters and the fire in his arms seared away the things he never wanted to remember so cleanly even his own conscience couldn't find them, but after one last blow his legs finally buckled under him.

He fell to his knees with a clatter of armor, resting his forehead against the hilt of his sword and drawing breath in choked gasps.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

"Everyone alright?" Wynda finally asked from behind him.

Aren took one last deep breath and exhaled it slowly. He nodded against the rough leather of his hilt, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them again. The necromancer was dead, and so was everything that had gone before. They would all be alright. "Just a few bruises." He winced at the hoarseness of his voice, suddenly embarrassed at his own lapse in self-control. "I'll be fine."

Callista answered next, and this time he didn't think the tired dullness in her words was feigned. "My shoulder's dislocated. Nothing fatal, though."

Wynda clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "For Light's sake, lass, sit down. You look like you're about to keel over. And quit poking at that arm!"

Someone settled heavily to the planks at his side, and Aren lifted his head to see Callista, legs sprawled towards the splintered bones of the necromancer and arm still held at that awkward angle. One side of her face was smeared with blood where it had run down from the cut in her forehead, but it was already scabbing over and that kind of wound always looked worse than it was. She arched a brow dryly at his inspection.

"You planned that," he said with just a touch of accusation, jerking his chin at the crate pinning the lifeless bones. He didn't know whether to be impressed, or annoyed at her for leaving him in the dark.

She laughed. "Not very well. I couldn't get it to walk over that wretched beam."

Aren looked at the way the metal edge of the crate had torn up the planks into a bristle of long splinters. If it had hit anywhere else, it probably would've dragged its target straight through to the bilge, with the battle following swiftly after. "Lucky," he muttered.

"One of my better traits." She leaned her cheek to the side to try to smear some of the blood off against the pauldron of her robes, then winced as the movement jarred her injured shoulder.

"I can set that for you," he said. He laid his sword down carefully to one side, then slipped off his shield and put that down too. His arms felt very light afterwards, contrasting oddly with the exhausted heaviness he felt everywhere else. Adrenaline had carried him through the end of the fight, but his muscles were sore and bruised from abuse, and the blaze of the Light through his body had left him feeling hollow and out of touch. He thought if he were to lie down on the planks now, he might not wake up until they reached Auberdine.

"Lend me your sword, lad," Wynda said. "I want to take a poke around, and I don't trust that those brutes are all dead."

Her words stirred him from his tired haze. That twisted mage was destroyed, but this wasn't over. The blood on the decks upstairs. Everything trapped behind that ice wall the magister raised. And what had become of the rest of his company? Concern rippled through him, and he struggled not to show how much the thought of more fighting wearied him. "You're right." He tugged off one of his gauntlets and dropped it with a clank, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye. "The others. The twins and Vorthaal." He hesitated. "And Luciel. We have to go find them."

"Ach, oh no you don't," Wynda said, green eyes sharp with concern as she watched him attempt to stumble to his feet. "I'll go after them. You sit down. I've seen pails of new milk less white than you."

Aren hefted his sword by the hilt, tempted to take her offer and toss it to her across the gap, but he hesitated. "Are you sure _you're_ alright?"

She snorted, crossing her plate-clad arms. Her armor was smeared with blood, but none of it was the right color to be hers, and the worst wound he could see was a nasty red bruise below her left eye. She still, he suspected, looked a great deal healthier than he did. "_I'm_ fine. And if either of you stands up again, I'll prove it by jumping on you even harder than I did that bony fiend."

He winced at the thought of her armor smacking into his sore body. "I don't think that will be necessary." Light, he'd been too stunned to think much of it at the time, but the woman had _tackled_ a necromancer who was practically a lich and tried to beat him senseless with nothing but her fists. Wynda was usually as level-headed a second in command as one could ask for, but she was a true dwarven juggernaut when her blood was up.

Still feeling a nagging sense of guilt for not going with her but too drained to pursue the argument much longer, he tossed the sword so it clattered to the planks near her boots. "If you find any trouble…"

"Jhormug will go with you," Callista said. "If anything goes wrong we'll hear the howls."

"Aye, I daresay they'd hear that fiend in Alterac," she grumbled, eyeing the felhound as it leapt the gap to land lightly on the other side. "Well, get on with you, you Nether-spawned menace."

Aren wasn't sure how smart the demon was, if it understood her words or was just sensitive to tone, but it chose that moment to snarl at her, raising its long spiked hackles then bounding away as Callista narrowed her eyes at it.

Wynda shook her head disapprovingly after it. "This shouldn't be long. Look after yourselves." Picking up Aren's sword, she followed in the felhound's wake, soon vanishing among the shadowy piles of cargo.

The click of bone pieces caught Aren's attention, and he looked to the side to see Callista prodding the remains of the necromancer with her boot. Something glittered among the fragments, and as she toed the bauble close enough to her good hand to pick up, he identified it as a signet ring set with a large violet stone.

"Dalaran," she said as she turned the ring in her fingers, thumbing away the last dust of powdered bone. "They always think it's about who has the biggest fireball."

Aren managed a tired smile at that. Arcane inter-scholastic rivalries died hard, it seemed, even when one of the parties was Scourge and the other had been expelled years ago. He shook his head at himself as he noticed the way she grimaced as some small movement jogged her injured shoulder. "I can look at your arm now if you want. Fair warning: it's going to hurt, but the longer we leave it the worse it will be."

She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but then began undoing the thin straps that held her pauldron in place with her other hand. The runes that curled along its embellishments had already begun to lose their crimson glow. "You can't just use some cantrip on it?"

"That might help the soreness, but it won't pop your shoulder back in."

She wrinkled her nose unhappily at the word 'pop.' "Ugh, Twisting Nether, this _will_ hurt, won't it." She slid around to face him more squarely, providing better access to the injury. "Alright. Let's get it over with."

Aren removed his other gauntlet and began prodding gently around the joint of her shoulder, checking for any tears or chipped bone fragments that would make this more complicated. The fabric of her robes was smooth as silk beneath his touch, but far more resilient and with none of the shine. Every now and then his fingertips would tingle not-quite-unpleasantly as he brushed one of the runes, and he realized with a tinge of misgiving that many of them were demonic. Not that he really had any right to be surprised by that. Even so, he wasn't sure any of his blessings would've passed through these enchantments even if he hadn't been so drained.

She hissed and shot him an irritated look as he touched a particularly sore spot.

"All of your bones and tendons seem to be intact, which is good," he offered by way of explanation. "Here, make a fist."

The corner of her mouth twitched skeptically, but she did as he asked, and Aren closed his fingers firmly around her wrist.

"I'm going to rotate your arm. It will probably be painful, but once your shoulder pops back in, you'll know."

"Ugh, sounds pleasant."

He guided her wrist until her elbow was at a right angle, then began to push her fist carefully towards her chest. "You went to the Stormwind Academy, didn't you?" he asked, simply to distract her from the discomfort.

She nodded, watching his hand on her wrist closely. "Mmmm. School of Fire. But don't look for my name on the graduate rolls."

No, Aren knew better than that. The details of her expulsion had been included in the parchments the Dawn had given him on her, along with a smattering of other information. Actually, thinking of which… "If you don't mind my asking," he said, only half paying attention to his words as he pressed her fist into her chest and then began to pull it slowly back outwards again, "what in the Light possessed you to let an imp loose on the Academy grounds?"

She laughed, but it turned into a wince halfway through. "I think saying I _let_ it is giving me too much cred– " She bit the word off halfway through, and for a moment Aren thought she was simply in too much pain to continue, but then he noticed the suspicious narrowing of her grey eyes. "How did you know about – ow! – about that?"

Aren frowned sheepishly at himself, rotating her arm as far to the side as it would go and then gently pressing it towards her chest again. He'd forgotten she'd never actually mentioned that to him – perhaps he hadn't chosen the best topic. "It was in the dossier the Argent Dawn gave me on you. There wasn't much," he added hastily as her glare sharpened. "Just name, occupation, references, and any evidence of, er…mischief."

She snorted at that, squeezing her eyes shut as he pulled her arm steadily outward once again. "Mischief? Please. Go on, call it what it is. They were looking for treason. Nice to know my city – _ow_ – doesn't think I've joined the Legion after all." She hissed through her teeth, half in pain and half in relief, as Aren felt her arm slip back into place.

"Try to move it now," he said, bringing his fingers back to her shoulder and pressing firmly against the joint.

"Who were my references?" she wondered as she rolled her shoulder against his palm with a disgruntled expression. "_I_ certainly didn't ask for any."

Her muscles and tendons all seemed to be pulling smoothly beneath his fingers, and she didn't look to be in any more pain. His brow creased as he tried to remember the names he'd read, none of which had been familiar to him at the time. "Lord Windsor, Lord Duncan, Lord and Lady Devereux…"

"Oh, plaguing _hells_!"

Her sudden curse startled him, and he glanced from her shoulder back to her face. In the short time they'd known each other, Aren had found the warlock's features to be remarkably expressive, and her current look of contempt was withering.

"It _would _be her, wouldn't it," she muttered. "Crocolisk-faced witch."

"Not a friend of yours?" Aren tried cautiously, dropping his hand from her shoulder.

"Not even close. Ugh, sorry," she said, dulling some of the edge in her voice. "I'm not angry at _you_." She reached up a hand to scratch absently at her face, felt the dried blood that flaked away beneath her fingernails and wrinkled her nose, scrubbing at her cheek in irritation.

"It's alright," Aren said. He still felt sore and a little lightheaded, and was relieved she didn't want to pursue an argument with him. He found, to his own mild surprise, that he actually enjoyed her company when she wasn't turning every conversation into a verbal fencing match. "I know you didn't want any part of any of this."

"Well, it's amazing how little what I want sometimes has to do with what I get into," she muttered resignedly. She finally stopped rubbing at her scabbed cheek and wiped her hand off against her robes, apparently satisfied that the worst of the mess was gone.

She'd almost gotten it all, but not quite. Aren registered the streaked red fingerprint still on her face and reached out automatically to smear it off for her. He didn't think more fully about what he was doing until his thumb brushed her jaw and he felt her head turn beneath his touch.

Her eyes flicked from his face to his hand, and though he couldn't quite place her expression (if he was forced to describe it, he would've put it somewhere between surprised and skeptical), he still suddenly felt intensely awkward. Why in Uther's name had he believed that that was appropriate? At least she didn't look angry.

He pulled his hand away sheepishly, turning it to show her his thumb. "Ah, you had blood on your face."

She raised a brow, expression shifting more towards the skeptical by the moment, and looked at him as though trying to decide if he was mad or just ridiculous. "More than you do?"

He touched his face, feeling the crust that had dried between his skin and his cheekguard, and felt, if possible, even more embarrassed. "Probably not."

She looked at him a moment longer and then laughed, rubbing the heels of her hands briefly against her eyes. When she glanced up at him again, her smile held nothing more unpleasant than amusement, and maybe something he could almost believe, in a wry, sideways sort of way, was affectionate.

Aren decided he had no regrets after all.

* * *

A/N: Whew, finally got this one out. Action scenes are always harder for me to write than other stuff, which is why it took so long (also, this chapter is about twice as long as the others, hah). Anyway, I just wanted to add a brief note on my (admittedly amateur) theories of writing relationships that I hope will reassure the people who expressed reservations about the "romance" (please note the quotations;-)) aspect of this fic. Firstly, I don't really believe in soulmates, i.e., that there is one and only one person that someone can ever be truly happy with, so a character being in one relatively good relationship doesn't necessarily invalidate all others. Secondly, I believe that the way characters relate to each other can (and should!) change as the characters change and learn more about one another. So just because a relationship is established to be one way in chapter three does not mean it will still fit the same description in chapter twelve (though, of course, it might). Thirdly, I absolutely hate it when characters who already have strong personalities turn into mushy pod-people as soon as they find a love interest, so if you ever see that happening here, feel free to smack me with something heavy (though I'll do my best to make sure you never have to:p). And lastly, this is fanfiction, so anything goes! I really wouldn't call anything a hopeless bet at this point, and there are lots of chapters left.


	9. Aftermath

Firelight glittered from the purple stone in the signet ring near Callista's feet, and she eyed the splintered skeleton it had belonged to warily. A mage of Dalaran, and then a lich raised by one of the Scourge's original masters…her pride would have her believe that under different circumstances she could've won that duel, but despite her natural self-assurance she suspected it wasn't true. He'd been more experienced than she, with magics tailored specifically to enslave the living. Likely the best she could've hoped for would be to force him to annihilate her so thoroughly there'd be nothing left to raise.

She gave a disgusted shudder at the thought, rubbing absently at her shoulder. Not because of the dislocation – Sir Aren had been true to his word when he said he could help the pain – but because of the three round scars that darkened the skin beneath her robes, relic of a doomguard's claws and the last time she'd overestimated her own powers. Ever since her return from Xoroth, she'd looked on more familiar dangers with a jaded eye. She'd just been sharply reminded that Azeroth had perils all its own, and not all of them could be dismissed so easily.

Which was why she was now sitting on the cold wooden floor of the hold, flicking her gaze suspiciously between the impenetrable shadows of the crates around them and the pile of shattered bones. "How long?" she wondered, narrowing her eyes at it.

Armor clinked to her left as Sir Aren shifted position. His face was still drawn and too-pale, a whiteness only exaggerated by the blood and black ichor that smeared his forehead and clung to the blond stubble around his cheekguards. "What?"

"If that thing – " she jerked her chin at the chipped skeleton " - was really a lich. How long until it comes back?"

To his credit, Sir Aren didn't look surprised at the idea; he just rubbed the heel of his hand briefly against his eye. "I don't know. Maybe never, if its phylactery was on that ship you burned."

Somehow, Callista doubted they were that lucky. She didn't know much about liches, but ripping your own soul out and hiding it in a jar seemed a little pointless if you were just going to carry the thing around with you anyway. "Did you ever fight one before?"

"No." He hesitated, studying the engraving on the back of one vambrace for a moment before continuing. "Before the war, I was a city guard. Not a soldier. When the Prince burned the city, we fled south with anyone we could save, tried to stay away from the battlefields as well as we could." He laughed shortly. "It didn't always work, but at least we never saw any liches, thank the Light."

Callista just looked at him. 'When the Prince burned the city…' Twisting Nether, she'd known he'd been from Lordaeron, but _Stratholme_? She'd thought no one had survived the purges. But then, she'd been younger during the war, safely ensconced in the high towers of the Stormwind Academy and more concerned with the fel magic she'd begun dabbling in than the plight of distant kingdoms.

"Did you?" he asked suddenly. "Ever see a lich before, I mean."

She shook her head. "No, I never had much to do with the Scourge." Luckily. Nether, she hated undead. She'd take demons first any day.

He was watching her more closely now, eyes scrutinizing beneath the silver of his helm. "I probably should've asked you this much earlier, but was this your first battle?"

She laughed, though not unkindly. No wonder he'd leapt between her and that ghoul. Not that it was really his fault; if the Argent Dawn had any idea what kind of fights she'd seen and where, they'd never have picked her for this mission. "Not even close. There are no Scourge in Outland, but plenty of demons." She paused, trying to decide what she could say without revealing too much or lying too egregiously. "No liches, but I did see an eredar warlock once. And a pitlord. That's almost as bad."

"'Almost?'" he echoed disbelievingly. "There's no record of you enlisting with any of the armies in Outland. And you said you weren't a mercenary. Don't tell me you ran into those things by yourself?"

"No, of course not. I had…companions. One of them took care of it. Mostly."

Sir Aren's brows rose. "'Took care of it?' Just like that? You should've brought him with you."

Callista choked down a burst of laughter that would've been louder than she could've explained. She'd gotten enough filthy looks on this ship just for conjuring one measly little burst of felfire; imagine if she'd shown up with a dreadlord. "Oh, I'm not sure that would've helped. I don't think he likes paladins."

"Less than you do?"

Callista quirked a lip, eyeing him sidelong. She wasn't surprised he'd noticed, but she _was_ surprised (and slightly amused) he'd take a shot at her. "I don't dislike paladins." It was only mostly a lie. "Just being roped into their disasters."

Sir Aren winced a little at that, glancing at the ichor stains and spell-shattered crates that surrounded them. "This wasn't supposed to be dangerous until we got to Kalimdor."

Before she could think of a reply to that (or at least, one that sounded less accusatory than what immediately came to mind), the dull clomp of many feet descending into the hold distracted her.

She climbed into a crouch with a low hiss, trying to will away some of the fatigue that weighted her limbs before standing. She wasn't quite finished yet, but if anything more threatening than a few ghouls came after them, she'd be in trouble.

At her side, Sir Aren lifted his shield into a ready position with a soft exhalation of breath. He'd been even more exhausted than she was before, and Callista didn't miss the way his arm wavered as he tilted the inscribed face of the shield at the dark. If anything more threatening than a few ghouls came after them, they would _both_ be in trouble.

"Sir Aren! Callista!"

"Olly-olly-oxen-free!"

Wynda's familiar brogue and a gleeful yell that had to belong to Ander echoed through the hold.

Callista relaxed, pausing her mental run-through of the spells she thought she still had the will for, while Sir Aren lowered his shield to the planks with a _thunk_.

"Over here!" he called back.

After a moment, Wynda squeezed her way through a gap in the crates with the two Redbranch brothers and Jhormug in tow. All of the mortals' armor was spattered with blood and dark gore, and Ander's leather vambraces both bore ragged sets of scratches, but aside from a few minor scrapes and the swelling below Wynda's eye none of them looked much worse for wear.

Ander gave a low whistle as he surveyed the smashed crates, angling his lantern to better examine the scoured piles of bones and the long pair of charred holes Callista had burned through the deck. "And I thought _we _made a mess."

"_You_ did," Nathanial grumbled, eyeing Jhormug warily as the felhunter loped past with his spiny hackles still half-raised.

Callista grabbed hold of one of the long horns that arced from the demon's shoulders as he edged up against her, more to reassure her companions than to actually restrain him. The residue of the Light that clung to the paladins and the remains Sir Aren had sanctified irritated the demon, but he couldn't turn on them without her permission.

"Well, luckily that captain is too happy not to be corpse-food to chuck us all overboard," Ander said cheerfully.

"Captain Verner survived?" Framed by the blood-smeared metal of his cheekguards, Sir Aren's face had composed itself once more into a commander's unruffled mask, but the relief in his voice was apparent. "What about the others?" The next pause was almost unnoticeable, but it was there. "Did you find Luciel?"

Wynda smiled. "Aye, lad, she's got a nasty leg wound, but she should recover. Vorthaal is looking after her." The smile faded from her face. "There were casualties among the crew, though, and more among the passengers. Mostly the ones who tried to flee upstairs during the first panic. It could've been worse, but still…"

Sir Aren nodded. "Alright." Wynda offered him his sword back hilt-first and he took it, sliding it carefully into the sheath at his hip. "Take me to Verner. We'll need to coordinate with his people to keep the passengers out of the way until the ship is cleaned up." He stooped to pick up the gauntlets he'd discarded to tend to her shoulder, and so Callista couldn't see if his expression changed as he added his next words. "And the funerals are arranged."

Uninterested in the logistics of wrangling skittish passengers, she absently rubbed the rough scales on the top of Jhormug's head, relieved the creature didn't seem to be taking undue interest in the necromancer's bones. If he'd truly been a lich, at least he didn't seem to be immediately going about resurrecting himself. She'd still feel better once they'd tossed what was left of him overboard. "Let's throw _that _one over first," she said, jerking a thumb at the heap of bones.

"I'll second that," Wynda said, gazing at the remains with distaste. "A swift boot over the rails will do for that fiend, and the sooner it is the better I'll feel."

"I agree, but we need to look after the living first." Sir Aren wiped the back of his hand across his forehead before looking to Callista. "Leave the demon here to watch?"

She hesitated, eyes narrowing imperceptibly. Not because she thought it wouldn't be safe (even an arch-lich would have trouble gathering its magic with a felhunter perched on its bony neck), but because she found the idea of another desperate battle rather _less _horrifying than the thought of trying to comfort a flock of sobbing widows (or whatever it was Sir Aren was so keen to start on upstairs). Then again, squatting in a dank hold that was beginning to smell nastily of carrion wasn't a very appealing option, either. "I suppose," she said doubtfully.

Jhormug laid down near the fractured skull at her silent command, tentacles searching even as he rested his snout on his horned paws.

She snuffed the fireball that had been providing most of the light and fell into line behind the glow of Ander's lantern.

"_I_ think we should take it with us," Ander confided to her as they squeezed sideways through the gaps in the cargo, "if only because you won't believe the color Verner's face turned when it ran up the stairs and started chewing on ghoul corpses if you never see it yourself. Kind of a purpley-reddish-green…"

Callista snickered, easily able to picture the captain's look of consternation at finding an actual demon aboard his ship, and an allied one, at that. "Where did you find the crew?"

"Barricaded in the galley. Between you all down here and that mage's ice wall, they were blocked off from the ghouls in the hold, but there were still plenty that climbed over the rails." He paused, and when he spoke again the usual cheer in his voice was subdued. "And the ones that turned after."

Callista grimaced, remembering the horrible mix of the familiar and the grotesque as faces she'd known in passing snarled at her with bloodstained teeth. "Yes, some of those came after us, too."

It was an unpleasant topic, and for a moment there was no sound but the crunch and tinkle of their footsteps as they walked over the glassware Jhormug had shattered.

"Tell her what you did," Nathanial said finally, turning around to peer at his brother and Callista with a mix of disapproval and amusement.

Since she was walking behind him, she couldn't see Ander's grin return, but she could hear it in his tone. "There was a huge tub of molasses heating near the galley stove. I smashed it in front of the door and caught about six of them like big smelly flies in glue."

Callista laughed, as much at the mischief in Ander's voice as at the imagery.

"Aye, and now I daresay in a day or two we'll have enough real flies as well," Wynda said dryly.

Ander sniffed playfully. "You people don't appreciate military genius."

The sounds of the passengers on the upper decks echoed down as they neared the stairs. Footsteps and the low murmur of voices, mostly, but the occasional sob or wail or terse order struck Callista's ears and soured her lightening mood. They'd driven back the Scourge, but there would be no celebrating. She suspected she'd enjoy the aftermath of this battle even less than she'd enjoyed the fight itself.

Grey fingers of light reached weakly down around them as they mounted the stairs. Somewhere above, dawn was breaking, but by the array of tired and bewildered and tear-streaked faces that turned to them as they entered the corridor, there would be little joy to greet it.

* * *

Captain Verner's expression was even grimmer than the scar that marred his face usually made it look as Aren joined him near the bow. "Seven crew and nineteen passengers," he said without preamble. "Not including those we lost during the daylight attack."

Sailors scurried about the deck around them, scrubbing at bloodstains with long-handled brushes or laying forlorn-looking bundles wrapped in sailcloth out along the rail. Aren tried not to let his gaze linger on them. All the ghoul corpses had been heaved unceremoniously over the side, but there was to be a funeral later for those who had belonged to the ship.

The captain's words drew only a resigned nod. It was a sad tally, but given the surprise and ferocity of the attack, they were lucky there hadn't been more. "How many wounded?"

"Eleven total."

Aren stared at him in surprise. Only eleven? Usually the number injured in any battle was several times the number slain outright, especially when few of those involved were soldiers. "That's all?"

Verner smiled his lopsided smile, but there was no humor in the icy blue of his eyes. "They tried very hard to kill anything bleeding. I think our guest in the hold was short of troops." A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he turned and spat over the side.

Aren sympathized, averting his eyes. It was a bitter thing to be entrusted with the lives of others and then fail in that trust. It didn't matter if no reasonable person could have expected anything more; self-doubt was not a reasonable person, and recriminations from within were harsher and bit deeper to the heart than anything ever voiced aloud. "What are your plans, now? Some of the passengers have been asking to return to Stormwind…"

Verner shook his head tersely. "Two more days along this coast and then across to Kalimdor. Enough of the crew is fit to sail, and this isn't a pleasure cruise."

Aren's nod was neutral, but inwardly he was relieved. Even though he knew, logically, that the settlers he'd been sent to find had been missing for so long that another few weeks' delay would probably make little difference, he still felt a sense of urgency. And, if he were perfectly honest with himself, he was still hoping that Callista would change her mind about staying behind in Auberdine. Even more so since she'd proven she could keep her head in a fight. If they turned around now, he had no doubt he'd never see her again once she set foot on the Stormwind pier. "Where did you set up the infirmary? I want to look in on Luciel."

"Wounded are in the mess, but I think your friend's already been moved to her quarters." He regarded him a moment longer with those piercing pale eyes. "Thank you," he said finally. "That thing in the hold…we haven't sailed with soldiers or a ship's mage since the war ended. I don't know how we would've fared alone."

Aren dipped his head in acknowledgment. "We're glad we could put an end to it. Let me know if there's anything else we can do to help."

Verner grunted. "Your dwarf and that draenei have been down in the infirmary since the battle ended. Tell them to go get some sleep."

"I'll pass that along," Aren said with a slight smile.

The day was overcast, but the cool breeze that ruffled the waves was still refreshing after so long in the stuffy hold, and he found the industrious ring of voices comforting after the cries and panicked shrieks of the battle. Though the crew was sadly reduced, many of the passengers had volunteered to help with nursing or cleanup. It wouldn't be long before _The Fortitude_ was ready to resume her voyage.

The clamor of voices hushed as he descended below to where the wounded were being tended. Makeshift cots had been set up around the long tables in the mess (bolted to the planks, and thus impossible to clear away), and a quick glance confirmed that none of them were Luciel.

He waved Wynda over from where she stood checking the bandages of a gnome woman with shockingly pink pigtails. "The captain says you're relieved," he said, studying the weary looseness of her shoulders, "and I think I'm seconding the order."

Her eyes when she smiled wryly at him, however, were as clear and sharp as ever. "Aye, lad, I was just thinking of turning in, myself. We've done what we can, and the rest are on their own. If you're looking for Luciel, Vorthaal's with her in her quarters." She shook her head. "It's a nasty scratch, but I'm sure we've all seen worse."

Aren nodded. "Alright. Thanks. Try to get some rest." He'd probably do the same, once he checked on Luciel.

The passenger corridor had already been scrubbed of bodies and blood, and once again looked like a scene from a pleasant inn instead of a nightmare from old Lordaeron. The only lingering remnant of the battle was the mist-pearled hump of ice he stepped over on his way to Luciel's room.

Her bright-red door stood ajar, but he still knocked softly before poking his head in.

Vorthaal turned to greet him respectfully, his still-armored bulk seeming to fill the small room. "Sir Aren."

Luciel lay on the bed beneath clean white sheets, eyes closed and shadowy-blue hair fanned out across the pillow, clearly asleep.

"How is she?" he asked quietly, nudging the door open farther.

"Sleeping, now." He touched her shoulder gently with his large fingertips before moving towards Aren. "Come, we will speak outside so she does not wake."

Aren moved back into the corridor, far enough to allow room for the draenei to follow, and Vorthaal shut the door softly behind him as he did.

"Will she be alright?"

"I believe so." Despite his encouraging words, Vorthaal's ridged brow lowered in a concerned frown. "The wound was not deep, but it is broad and there was infection in it. I think I have purged it, but it is hard to be sure. There was a taint in it that resists the Light."

Aren's heart sank, and even weariness couldn't dull the dread that wrapped cold tendrils around it. This wasn't the news he'd hoped for when he'd learned Luciel had survived. "The creature in the hold was a powerful necromancer. Maybe even a lich. Still, I would've thought his corruption would've been destroyed when he was."

"Unless he was not truly destroyed," Vorthaal said.

"Unless that." Aren sighed. "It's not unprecedented, sadly. We should keep a close eye on Luciel's wound. The other casualties', too." He glanced around to make sure no passengers were within earshot before adding quietly: "And we should make sure that one of us is on hand should any succumb to them."

A low growl rumbled in Vorthaal's throat as he caught his suspicion. "Yes, I agree that that is wise."

"Take care of her." Suddenly feeling even more exhausted than he had sitting among the skeletons in the hold, he took his leave of the other paladin and went in search of the others. So many had died to keep the horrors that consumed his home from spreading. It tried his faith, sometimes, that the Light's defenders should be so fragile while its enemies wrought havoc even as they failed.

* * *

Callista sat at a table at the opposite side of the mess from the cots, swirling a cup of dark wine disinterestedly in one hand and resting her chin in the other. Two similar cups sat on the table nearby, but the Redbranches had finally headed off to their quarters a few minutes ago. She envied them, vaguely; the tiredness she felt was more the mental fatigue that came from spellcasting than physical exhaustion, and it didn't lend itself easily to sleep.

Taking another sip of wine, she watched the passengers moving around the cots set up between the long tables, monitoring wounds or comforting injured loved ones. She didn't much feel like getting drunk, but she was hoping the wine would go to her head enough to make her sleepy. With that necromancer's bones finally pitched over the side, she thought the nap would be a peaceful one.

"Have the others gone to bed?"

She lifted her chin from her hand as Sir Aren sat down next to her in Nathanial's vacant seat. He was still clad in his engraved plate armor, but his gauntlets and helm were missing and he'd taken the time to wash the blood from his face. Fatigue still shadowed it, however, and she was surprised that he hadn't tried to get some sleep himself.

"You just missed the twins."

"That's alright. I'll catch them when they wake up." He reached out to toy with an empty cup, turning it aimlessly in his fingers, and Callista pushed the open bottle of wine along the table at him. He hesitated a moment, glanced from her face to the bottle, then took it and poured the cup full almost to the brim. "I'm glad one of you is still here, to be honest." His voice was much softer now, and she had to cock her head nearer to listen. "Don't say anything to the passengers, but the wounds may be infected. Until we're sure it's harmless, I'd rather one of us kept watch."

Alarmed, Callista stopped swirling her cup. "You think it's plague?"

He didn't answer at first, taking a long swallow of wine without seeming to taste it. "I don't know."

For a while there was silence as they both sipped at their drinks. Finally feeling the warm haze of alcohol beginning to rub the edges off her thoughts, Callista reached again for the bottle.

"He mentioned a name," Sir Aren said abruptly.

She set her newly-filled cup on the table, looking at him in confusion. She was beginning to feel the wine, but she wasn't _that_ drunk. "What? Who did?"

"The – that _thing_ in the hold. He mentioned a name. A dreadlord."

She kept her hand on the smooth wood of her cup but didn't pick it up, still puzzled and feeling an instinctive flicker of suspicion at the mention of dreadlords. She remembered the lich's words, but couldn't see what interest they would hold for Sir Aren. The creature had been mocking them, nothing more. There was little point in pretending ignorance, though. "Dalvengyr."

He nodded, taking another swallow of wine before speaking. When he looked up from the cup to study her face, there was no suspicion in his expression, only curiosity. "You sounded like you recognized it."

So, that's what this was about. She _had_ recognized it, though not because he was a creature she had ever encountered. "Just the name, not the demon," she said, dipping a finger absently into her cup. "He turns up in certain accounts of the Scourge wars."

"I suppose he would," he muttered. Despite the doubtful way he'd eyed the bottle at first, now that he had a glass in his hand he drank through it with a dull kind of will. "I didn't know you had an interest in history."

That's because she didn't. What she actually had was an interest in dreadlords, but the two things tended to be strongly related. Miserable immortal fiends. Dalvengyr hadn't been the one she'd been looking for, though. "Only parts. Warlocks study the Legion, you know." She watched as a ruby drop of wine beaded at her fingertip and fell back into the cup. His muttered statement finally sank in though the layers of drink and exhaustion, and a thought struck her. "That wasn't a name _you_ recognized?"

Sir Aren half smiled, though there wasn't much pleasure in it. "The name _and_ the demon, unfortunately. I think we met. Outside Dalaran, or what was left of it."

"You're kidding." She stared at him in surprise, and might have asked another question, but something in his face stopped her. She took another drink instead, but continued to eye him.

"You know for sure he's dead?" He wasn't looking at her anymore, suddenly intensely interested in the hue of the wine in his cup.

Callista considered how she should answer that, chasing a red droplet around the rim of her glass with a fingertip. She was as sure of it as the author of the treatise she'd read had been – for certain values of dead. "The chronicle I found was…fairly graphic. But 'dead' can be relative. For some demons more than others."

"What does that mean?"

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and continued to prod at the droplet as she tried to phrase her explanation in a way a non-arcanist would find clear. "Demons are bound to the Twisting Nether more tightly than they are to Azeroth. Or to anywhere. Destroying their physical forms just sends them back, and won't usually result in a permanent dissolution. Unless you bind or somehow annihilate the soul, they can be summoned again by anyone with the right knowledge. And the cleverest ones can gather enough power in the Nether to summon _themselves_ back."

"And dreadlords are clever." He'd buried his face in his arms as she spoke, whether to better focus on the words or just because he was tired she couldn't tell, but since he was still wearing his steel vambraces it didn't look very comfortable. He turned his head so his short stubble rasped across the metal, resting his cheek against his crossed forearms. "I wish I could say I'm surprised. But I saw that thing shake off an entire cadre of Kirin Tor mages and _laugh_. It's hard to imagine anything killing it."

He'd put his head down very close to the hand toying with her cup, and she imagined briefly what it would be like to move it to brush the tense line of his jaw before discarding the thought. Not because she was uninterested (physically, she found him very interesting), or even because she thought she'd embarrass herself (she remembered his touch earlier, and the way he looked at her when she wasn't snarling at him, and was reasonably sure that she wouldn't), but because the idea was _stupid_. Not the least advisable attraction she'd ever had, granted, but still probably not worth it. She pinged a fingernail idly off the rim of her cup instead. "Oh, I'm sure even dreadlords get theirs eventually." If only because they occasionally ran afoul of each other.

He startled her by laughing quietly as he watched her. "Are you drinking that or washing your hands in it?"

Honestly, the latter was probably closer to the truth, but she shot him a devilish look anyway and drained what was left in the cup. "I'm still ahead of you," she said, setting it down.

He smiled, but before he could say whatever was on the tip of his tongue, another thought seemed to occur to him and the smile twisted into a grimace. "I can't get drunk." He raised his head from his arms, giving it a sharp shake as though to rattle the responsibility (or, in Callista's opinion, killjoy self-righteousness) back into it. "This isn't over."

She snorted, rolling her empty cup between her palms so it spun precariously on its bottom edge. "Nothing's ever over. It's called not being dead."

His hand shot out to catch the cup just before it careened off the side of the table. "Maybe. But someone needs to try to make sure we all stay that way."

She cocked her head at him, gaze traveling up his steel-clad arm to his face. "Oh, really now." He said 'maybe' to her a lot, she'd noticed. She wasn't sure if she found that amusing or irritating, but she was exactly sure how she felt about men (or anyone) who put so much worth in saving a mass of people they didn't know and many of whom were probably beyond help anyway. "You know, the world managed to take care of itself for millennia before you ever strapped on a sword. It could probably muddle through the next few hours alone without spiraling into the Nether."

"I'm not worried about all of Azeroth. Just the people on this ship." Setting the cup gently down on the table in front of her, he slid off the bench. "You should try to get some sleep."

She made no reply to that, watching as he strode towards the white-sheeted cots at the far end of the galley. Trapping the cup between her palms, she set it to spinning again with a sharp motion. His attitude annoyed her, and it annoyed her even more that she should bother being annoyed. She'd known paladins before, some of them even stuffier than Sir Aren, and their behavior had never stirred anything in her but amused contempt. Not this time, though. Maybe it was the way he let the pristine mask slip occasionally; she suspected he might actually know how to have fun if he'd ever let himself. Of course, Azeroth probably really would spiral off into the Nether before that happened.

Downing that last glassful of wine had finally had the effect she intended, and she yawned widely. Dropping her hand down on the cup to still it, she stood and began making her way back to the passenger corridor. Alone, which was less interesting…she flicked the thought away impatiently. Nothing but stress and boredom, probably. Oh, physically, the paladin fit her type well enough (tall and broad-shouldered, good features), but in temperament? She snorted mentally as she threaded through the passengers gathered around the cots. Callista had learned a long time ago that most people couldn't match her in raw force of will, and she preferred to pick lovers from the fraction that could. If she didn't, not only was running roughshod over them boring after a while, but eventually they would start to resent her, and that wasn't fun for anyone. None of that ruled out a strictly physical liaison, of course, but somehow she couldn't see Sir Aren settling for that. Not with how seriously he seemed to take everything else.

She pulled open the door to her quarters, shutting it quietly behind her so as not to disturb Wynda, who was visible only as a dwarf-shaped lump beneath her covers. Well, once they reached Auberdine she'd no longer have to worry about it. And, much as it might come as a surprise to some who knew her, she didn't act on _every_ impulse that flitted through her mind. That would make life a little too interesting even for her.

* * *

A/N: Short chapter, but I wanted to get the battle wrapped up and a few of my ducks in a row before I vanish for the next couple weeks. We're almost done with the seafaring part of this story, and then it will be on to Kalimdor and the main part of the plot. In the meantime, I've set up a formspring account (link is in my profile!) if anyone has any anonymous questions they want to ask.

Thanks again to everyone who's left feedback, you guys inspire me to get this stuff out of my head and into print:-)


	10. Lessons

Two days later the first passenger died of her injuries, followed closely by the second. Neither wound had looked severe – a small bite on the arm, a shallow gouge in the leg – but they had quickly festered, turning black and rank with pus as red streaks of infection raced up the veins beneath the skin. The severity of the illness seemed strangely unrelated to the bloodiness of each wound (several people with much uglier cuts seemed to be recovering), but Aren had his own theories on that. The undead plague's original strain would've raged undiluted in the bodies of the Lordaeron ghouls. He suspected the wounded who survived would be mostly those set upon by their own former shipmates.

There was no way of telling which had caused Luciel's injuries.

A soft red glow smudged the sky to their left as the sun dipped into the horizon. Captain Verner stood near the rail, reciting the sonorous words of the rite of burial at sea over the two sailcloth-wrapped bodies laid on planks near his feet. A cluster of passengers and crew gathered around him at a respectful distance, and Aren could easily pick out Vorthaal standing head and shoulders above the crowd near the back, the solemn glow of his eyes mirroring the stars that had begun to peek from the sky behind him. Wynda stood near the front with a hand squeezing the shoulder of a sobbing dwarf woman.

She and Aren had attended each passing, half to perform the final blessings of the Light and half to ensure that the disease's foulness ended with its victim's death. Despite his earlier fears, the bodies lay peacefully still. They looked somehow smaller than they had in life; even the dwarf's stocky form looked sadly reduced beneath its canvas shroud.

"Oh, Light, by the power of your Word you stilled the chaos of the primeval seas, you made the raging waters of the elements subside, you brought calm to the wild spirits of the floods that beset our fathers."

Footsteps echoed up the forecastle stairs behind him, and he glanced back to see Callista and the Redbranches step onto the deck and then pause as they registered the scene in front of them. The brothers clasped their hands together automatically around the fishing rods and tackle they held, adding their voices to those of the passengers murmuring the words of the funeral prayer.

Callista bowed her head respectfully, pushing back the grey hood of her cloak, but her lips didn't move with the others'. Not surprising. Aren supposed he should've felt condemnation for her lack of faith, or at least pity, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to feel much of anything. That would be naïve, expecting a warlock to believe in the Light. He wondered if she really believed in anything.

"As we commit the earthly remains of our brother, Durem Staranvil, and sister, Geraldine Farrow, to the deep, grant them your peace and tranquility as their souls find safe harbor in your mercy. We ask this through the grace of the Holy Light. Amen."

Four sailors, one at the head and foot of each body, lifted the planks they rested on. Setting them on the top of the rail, they tipped their burdens gently into the sunset-tinged sea below.

The dwarf woman Wynda was comforting had managed to dry her red-rimmed eyes during the captain's prayer, but let out a strangled cry at the splash.

Something in Aren's chest twisted, and he looked away. His gaze fell on Nathanial, who was watching the woman with a troubled expression, and he wondered with another pang if he was picturing his own wife in her place.

"Sometimes I don't know why the Light allows it," Nathanial muttered.

Callista adjusted her cloak around her shoulders as the breeze stiffened. "The same reason the arcane does." For once she didn't sound amused by her own words. Actually, she looked as though she didn't care much for the taste of them at all. "Because power is indifferent, and the good are no better at wielding it than their enemies. In fact, they're usually worse."

Nathanial crinkled up his nose, eyeing her reproachfully. "Ouch. You don't really believe that?"

She cocked her head at him. "Why not? Your own superiors obviously do, or I wouldn't even be here."

Ander laughed. "Right, because you're obviously just a great big ball of demonic evil. _Woooooo_." He waggled the fingers of his free hand playfully at her.

She grinned wryly and swatted at the fingers he was wiggling in her face. "Hey! Oh, alright. So I'm not quite as bad as I could be. But trust me, I'm no better than I have to be, either."

"Good," Ander said cheerfully. "One less to scold me when I show up hungover to muster." He shot Aren a rakish glance to see if he was listening.

He was, but Aren was far too used to Ander's capering to be baited. "Should I be sticking my fingers in my ears?" he asked dryly.

Ander showed him a white grin. "Could you?"

Callista arched a brow mischievously at him, and this time the twist in his stomach was decidedly more pleasant.

Nathanial tilted his head, looking his brother over with a critical expression. "What are you going to do if the Dawn ever assigns you to a commander who doesn't think you're funny?"

Ander seemed to consider that for a moment, then shrugged, face brightening. "Finally get a chance to drink at a court martial?"

Nathanial snorted. "You think I would've learned by now." For good measure, he thwacked his brother lightly across the back of the neck with his fishing pole. "Come on, we should put our lines over the other side."

They traipsed off with their tackle in the opposite direction of the slowly-dispersing funeral, Ander taking the opportunity to jab his twin in the back with the tip of his fishing rod.

Callista looked after them for a moment with an amused cant of her head, then wandered over to lean up against the forecastle wall at Aren's side. She laced her fingers together and stretched before settling comfortably back against the planks, watching the last crimson sliver of sun dissolve into the sea. Her air of idle contentment was contagious; the mourners had mostly scattered into small knots of people clustering near the rails, and in the soft slanting light of dusk it was deceptively easy to imagine that this was a different, happier kind of voyage. For a moment, Aren allowed himself to be lulled.

"You know, there's a lot I don't like about this trip, but I'm not sorry about all of it," she said after a moment, tipping her chin in the direction of the Redbranches' departure. "You wouldn't believe how seriously most arcanists take themselves."

She said it like it was a bad thing, but Aren wasn't so sure that a little sobriety was unwarranted among a group that could burn down a city quarter with a wrong twist of thought. "They're good at getting around people." He shook his head ruefully, remembering past misadventures. "Probably better than they should be, actually."

"Well, maybe if some people didn't need so much getting around, they wouldn't have so much practice." She'd been inspecting the runes that circled the cuff of one of her sleeves, but flicked her eyes lightly up to his at the end of her words.

For reasons he couldn't quite articulate, he felt a sheepish smile begin to creep across his face before he realized how silly he must look and stifled it. "I'm their commander," he protested. "I'm _supposed_ to need getting around."

"Oh, so that's how it works," she said, the corner of her mouth twitching in an expression that, for once, seemed to be without edge. "Are you mine?"

He had the horrible suspicion that his ears had flushed and suddenly missed his helm, which would've hidden them. She was teasing him – he had no idea how to answer that question, her position in his company was fuzzy enough on its own and the half-veiled invitation in her eyes only complicated things – and he couldn't decide if he liked it or not. Aren was educated enough (his mother had been a petty noble – married to his father for a stake in the family business – and had seen to that), but he didn't have the silver tongue that the mage schools seemed to encourage in their students, and he'd never been fond of the kind of banter that Callista seemed to enjoy.

He was saved from finding an appropriate answer by the approaching clop of Vorthaal's hooves against the deck. He looked up gratefully, then immediately felt guilty at the draenei's solemn expression. There were grieving people here. He should be representing the Light, not…doing whatever he was doing with Callista, who was a warlock and faithless and probably not even really interested in him anyway.

"There was fear that the infection could spread to the healthy," Vorthaal said. Behind him the sky had deepened to black velvet, smeared with red only at the very edge of sea and sky, and the light of his eyes glinted off the gold rings that adorned each of his fleshy barbels. "I believe I have reassured them, but it is hard to be certain. Your people's faces are so dark without sun."

"I can speak to them, but I'm sure you did fine," Aren said, straightening. Most people were a little in awe of the draenei, who were built so imposingly and seemed so ancient, and, if anything, Vorthaal's word on this illness would be more readily accepted than his own.

"It does not seem fair," he said, and Aren thought he detected a little wistfulness in the low rumble of his voice. "You become ill so easily, when your lives are already so short."

Callista laughed. "Elves and draenei, _Nether_. Please, rub it in more."

Vorthaal looked startled and then abashed, tail swishing sheepishly behind him, but she laughed again before he could begin to apologize. "Oh, don't look so guilty! I was only teasing. We grow up used to it," she said. "Not that we like it, when we stop to think about it, but I imagine it would be worse to expect to live forever and then fall sick. No one I know pines too much for immortality."

"That is well," Vorthaal said, relaxing now that it was clear he hadn't offended anyone. "My people live very long, so long that few have ever died of aging, but we are mortal all the same. For some it was not enough. It is a snare the Burning Legion used when they came to our world."

Callista snorted. "I guess their lures haven't changed much in the last few thousand years."

Vorthaal shrugged his large shoulders grimly. "Why would they, when they have been so successful? Yours is the first world we have visited to have withstood more than one assault."

Aren grimaced, finding this entire conversation deeply depressing. Just one more reminder of old tragedies on a journey that seemed much too full of them already. He'd thought to find closure here, helping the last survivors of his homeland one final time, but sometimes it seemed that all he was managing was to rip the scabs from hurts that were never as healed as he'd believed. Before they'd left port, he'd been able to go days without conjuring up Lordaeron's ghosts, and had been able to imagine a time when they'd no longer trouble him at all. Now, it seemed he could hardly go hours without having some reminder thrust upon him. This wasn't how he'd meant it to be.

"The joys of belligerence," Callista said more cheerfully than he thought her words warranted. "We've been sharpening our claws on each other for years."

This particularly egregious bit of cynicism dragged his attention back to the conversation at hand. "Not true," he said, shaking his head briefly to clear it. "We won because we managed to set aside our differences long enough to lock shields against a common enemy."

She showed her teeth in savage amusement. "And the only reason we had shields to lock was because we'd been bludgeoning each other with them for the last few thousand years. We just want the Legion to leave us alone so we can go back to killing each other properly. All those demons running around tipping battles one way or the other…very unsporting."

Vorthaal looked at her sidelong, white-lit eyes narrowing speculatively. "I have not yet decided if you believe everything that you say."

She gave a vague half-shrug. "That's alright. Neither have I."

He let out a bemused rumbling chuckle. "I would say that humans are odd creatures, but by the commander's face, you are simply an odd human. Perhaps I will…sleep on it?" He seemed uncertain as to whether he'd used the right expression, but when no one corrected him, he continued. "It is time for me to retire. I will see you tomorrow."

They bid him goodnight, and it didn't take long for his hoofbeats to fade into the bowels of the ship. In the quiet that followed his departure, a woman's muffled sobs were clearly audible over the slap of waves against the hull and ruffling of canvas.

The forlorn sound shattered what was left of the peace Aren had allowed himself to indulge in. He squared his shoulders beneath his tabard to keep them from sagging as the responsibility of his position seemed to settle back onto them as oppressively as it ever had. "I should go, too. I need to check on Luciel and the other wounded, make sure Wynda's alright…"

Callista watched him inscrutably for a moment, leaning her temple up against the weathered wood of the forecastle wall. "Do you ever make anything easy on yourself?"

It was an unexpected question, and it was hard not to flinch at the suddenness of it. He didn't have an answer, and the anger that flared in his breast startled him. He didn't like being blindsided, didn't like the way she threw words around like they were darts and then watched to see if she'd hit anything vital, didn't like the way she was always so damnably _certain_. It wasn't fair. The world had buckled under Aren's feet years ago when the Scourge came, so badly that not even his faith had managed to shore it back into place again, but even though the warlock believed in nothing but the callous indifference of everything she never seemed to fear that the ground would shift beneath her step. He was drawn to her surety even as it irritated him, and what galled the most was the idea that she wouldn't even care.

Well, maybe he couldn't make her, but he didn't have to further whatever game she thought she was playing with him, either. Meeting her eyes implacably for a heartbeat longer, he turned and strode down the stairs.

* * *

Callista waited for his footsteps to fade before wandering to the rail, looking thoughtfully over it into the onyx sea below. Her question had stung him, obviously, but then, she'd meant it to. Sir Aren seemed to be what was, in her experience, that rarest of all things: a truly sincere man. Her reasonable side told her that only made him a fool – after all, people without guile were so often taken advantage of by people who were…well…like her – but somewhere along the line a grudging respect had crept in. He hadn't led a sheltered life, and it must've taken immense strength of spirit to not become bitter as the Scourge devoured his entire world. What's more, they'd fought a lich together, and despite her cynical sense of misgiving she was beginning to like him. He deserved a better life than one where he was perpetually tormenting himself for things he could never have helped.

Even so, she thought she'd seen real anger in that look he'd given her before heading below, and she wondered if she'd hit a more tender nerve than she'd meant to.

The wind pushed the ship along at a good clip, and moon-flecked pearls of spray rose from the bow. It had been a while since Callista had last sailed, and she'd forgotten how enormous the night sky could look at sea. Craning her head back, she watched the sails sway against a brilliant scatter of stars, the White Lady and Blue Child just beginning to rise as bright crescents near the horizon. The occasional sailor scurried along the deck behind her but paid her no mind. Captain Verner had issued a curfew after the collision with the Scourge, but she and the rest of Sir Aren's company seemed to be tacitly exempt. The idea that the crew might actually find her prowling reassuring was a strange one to her. Most people considered warlocks one of the things that lurked in the shadows, not a defense against them.

Tiring of the empty night, she turned back towards the forecastle stairs. After the attack, she'd stopped trying to adapt to the schedule of the ship and gone back to her usual nocturnal habits. She'd grabbed a few copies of magical texts before getting hauled off on this voyage; maybe she'd take a lantern down to the deserted mess and read them for a while. Now that the wounded had been moved back to their own quarters, it was pleasantly quiet there at night.

A few hours later, her eyelids had begun to droop.

She yawned, leaning back on the bench, and pushed away the square of spell-diagrammed parchment she'd been annotating. The mortals of Azeroth had had much greater contact with demons since the re-opening of the Dark Portal, and a lot of interesting work was coming out of the wreck of Draenor. She'd gotten a little behind on it, distracted as she'd been with yanking imps out of nobles' gardens, but this voyage was giving her the chance to catch up.

She'd reached her limit for this night, though. Gathering her papers in one hand and the light in the other, she made her way around the tables of the empty mess towards her quarters. The lanterns that stood sentinel along the walls of the passenger corridor had been dimmed to reddish sparks, but at least they were lit. She felt none of the unfocused menace that she had the night of the attack.

All the same, she jumped as a muffled clatter shivered up through the planks under her feet.

What in the Twisting Nether was _that_?

She paused, listening, but the noise didn't repeat itself. Something in the hold? It sounded almost as though a crate had tumbled to the floor. Maybe some cargo had slipped its bindings?

Shifting her grip on her parchments, she scowled at the dim stairs at the end of the corridor. They'd done several thorough sweeps of the ship after the attack, and she was sure that no ghouls had escaped, but that didn't mean she was about to ignore any strange noises. Probably it was nothing, but she'd sleep a lot better once she was certain of it.

Ducking quietly into her quarters so as not to disturb Wynda, she tucked the parchment back into her pack and then hesitated. Was this worth changing into her robes for? The enchantments would be helpful if she actually found anything dangerous, but, on the other hand, if some passenger stuck his head out and saw her dressed like she was strolling into Tarren Mill there'd be a scene. Settling on a compromise, she left the robes folded at the bottom of her bag but grabbed the belt that held her sheathed dagger. She buckled it on over her tunic as she shut the door gently behind her and strode towards the stairs.

Once she descended to the landing she stopped, straining her ears against the creak and groan of sea-tossed wood.

Nothing.

She doubted she'd find anything more menacing than a particularly clumsy rat, but she still closed a fist around one of the soul shards she habitually kept in her pockets, feeling the bleed of power into the air around her as she fashioned a spell.

The shard vaporized in her fingers as the shadows that painted the walls around her seemed to leap together and coalesce, whirling into a vaguely-humanoid mass. Two eyes like white stars winked into existence in the amorphous void of the demon's face.

"Must feed," it rasped.

She waved the voidwalker off impatiently, giving it a mental command and following its shadowy back down into the hold. She generally preferred Jhormug for this type of thing – the voidwalker hated her with the same icy hatred it harbored for all living things, and its company was decidedly unpleasant – but it would be too much effort to keep the felhunter from howling, and she didn't want to panic the whole ship. Thal'kuun, whatever its personal shortcomings, was at least quiet. And despite the hazy formlessness of its body, its claws were very real and razor-sharp.

Flames guttered in her cupped hand as she slipped between the dark stacks of crates. The crew had done their best to remove all signs of the battle, but they'd been less thorough in their scrubbing down here than they'd been in the living spaces, and blotchy stains still marked the planks where bodies had lain. The air smelled of saltwater and pitch, but she thought she could still detect a sour whiff of decay underneath.

Thal'kuun glided stolidly before her, its shapeless body simply deforming to pass through the places where Callista had to squeeze sideways.

There was no sound but her own footsteps and the rasp of her clothing against the crates, but the flickering light of the fire in her hand coupled with the memories of the last time she'd entered this place conspired to make it creepier than it should have been. Shadows danced and swayed, and her imagination had no trouble conjuring the hunched bodies of ghouls around each twist of the path. She found the frigid touch of the voidwalker's mind at the edges of her own perversely comforting.

They'd just passed the place where Jhormug had broken a crate – swept now of broken glass – when she heard it. She froze, holding her breath as she listened to the quiet series of splashes. Not the waves against the hull; this was too irregular and too close. There was water under their feet in the bilge, she remembered. She wasn't sure if anyone had boarded up those holes she'd burned in the deck earlier, but now seemed like a good time to check.

As they moved around the roped barrels where she'd first seen that necromancer, she caught sight of a dappled pattern of light on the planks above, as though a lantern was shining off the water in the bilge. It seemed no one had closed off those holes after all, though the smashed crate and the Scourge remains had all been removed.

She narrowed her eyes. Not undead, then – they wouldn't need the light – but something was amiss here, and whatever it was was about to be very sorry.

The top of a rickety-looking ladder poked up over the charred side of one of the gaps. Callista clenched her hand, extinguishing the flames, and motioned Thal'kuun first down into the bilge.

Rather than using the ladder, the voidwalker simply glided to the edge and drifted downward like black smoke.

Callista had just reached the ladder and craned her neck to peer into the hole when a terrified shriek echoed upwards in concert with a cold surge of delight across her bond with Thal'kuun.

She hissed through her teeth, suddenly unsure. That scream sounded decidedly human…and the voidwalker never seemed that pleased to torment anything she _wanted_ it to kill.

Cursing under her breath, she yanked back viciously on her minion's tether, stopping it from doing…whatever horrible thing it had been contemplating…and half-slithered half-jumped down the ladder. She landed knee-deep in slimy seawater and caught one of the rungs to avoid slipping on the curved bottom of the bilge.

At first all she could see was Thal'kuun as it loomed like a shifting tidal wave of shadow over something cornered against the side. A blue flare of magic shattered against its chest in tinkling shards of ice, and she swore again. "Get away from there!"

The voidwalker slid backward with a reluctant growl, revealing two rather damp and stunned-looking humans. The first, she'd expected – Dinah, that half-fledged mageling with the brown hair and too-large eyes – but the second startled her. Magister Sabrice blinked up at her, eyes wide with fear, before recognition crossed his features and they composed themselves into a reproachful expression. It did nothing to quell Callista's growing irritation.

"Did it touch either of you?" she asked crankily. Creeping through a dark hold waiting for something hideous to leap at her wasn't her idea of an enjoyable night.

"No," Dinah said in a small voice, swallowing shakily. Her back was still pressed up against the grimy bulkhead, but she seemed disinclined to move. "It just reached…"

And given them a solid dose of its own native version of a fear spell, by the looks of it. Callista turned her head to study Thal'kuun disapprovingly. For a mostly-faceless blob of voidstuff, it was doing an excellent approximation of a sulk – its entire form seemed squatter (though it still towered over any of the humans), and it flattened even more at her inspection, narrowing the white holes of its eyes. "_Feed_," it grumbled.

Callista sighed grumpily. She supposed it wasn't really the demon's fault; it was only doing what it did, after all, and if there really had been enemies down here she would've been pleased with it. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out another soul shard and held it in her palm. "Yes, feed."

A quick cantrip loosed the bindings on the shard, dissolving it into an amethyst vapor that flowed to merge with the shadows of Thal'kuun's form, momentarily swirling on its surface like purple oil before being completely consumed. The voidwalker's simple pleasure at being satiated brushed her mind, but not for long. "Rend flesh," it hissed in a tone she imagined was hopeful.

Dinah and Magister Sabrice watched nervously as it reared almost to the planks overhead and flexed the shadowy points of its claws.

"Later," Callista said, dismissing it back to the Nether with a gesture. Its hatred roiled her thoughts briefly before vanishing.

Magister Sabrice pushed himself away from the damp bulkhead and straightened, bolder now that the demon was gone. He'd hiked his trousers up to his knees, revealing his skinny calves, but the fabric was still soaked to the edge of his tunic. "I can't believe you _rewarded _that thing for – "

"Acting the way it's supposed to?" she snapped dangerously. The cold filthy water she was standing in had already filled her boots and begun wicking up her calfskin leggings, further souring her already foul mood. "You should take a lesson from it, _Magister_. What do you think you're doing down here?"

As if she couldn't guess. A partially-shuttered lantern stood next to a spellbook on top of a crate serving as a makeshift table, and she could read the distinctive characters of Eredun on the exposed pages.

"Teaching," Magister Sabrice said, drawing himself up and looking at her down his long nose with impressive haughtiness.

Callista eyed him balefully. "Rend flesh" was beginning to sound less and less like a totally unreasonable demand. "Teaching. Of course," she said in a deceptively even voice. "Teaching what? Fel magic? To a complete novice? On a shipful of people, separated from an entire sea full of very deep, very cold, very _unbreathable_ water by one very thin hunk of _wood_?" She kicked her toe against the bulkhead for emphasis, words an irate hiss. "Are you insane?"

"I don't like your tone, girl. Or your implication." Beyond his habitual nervous tugging at one sleeve, Sabrice didn't seem at all intimidated by her now that the demon was gone. "We're not fools. We were only translating spells, not practicing them."

It pacified her slightly to know that there hadn't really been any danger of the ship burning down, but she was still very annoyed. The way he kept calling her "girl" didn't help. "_You're_ a warlock? I guess I'm not entirely surprised." She looked him over coolly, stepping up onto one of the lower rungs of the ladder to lift her feet out of the water.

Twin spots of color rose in his papery cheeks as he sloshed over to the crate and scooped up the lantern and spellbook. "I am no such thing." At Callista's skeptically narrowed eyes, he elaborated. "I…dabbled…once. But not anymore."

She cocked her head, still clinging to the ladder. Now _that_ piqued her interest. Almost the only reason anyone who started down the path of demonic magic returned to magecraft was because they found they didn't have an aptitude for it. Even among those, it wasn't common; far more often they simply destroyed themselves with power they couldn't handle. To backpedal down that path far enough to become a successful mage showed an unusual amount of both self-knowledge and self-control, and Callista's opinion of the magister actually rose slightly. Though he was still, at this particular moment, an idiot. "If you'd given it up, why are you tutoring _her_?"

Dinah had been watching the two of them argue in somewhat nervous silence, but she'd recovered from the scare the voidwalker had given her enough to cross her arms defiantly when Callista jerked her chin at her. "I was going to learn anyway."

Magister Sabrice sighed. "If she insists on making this mistake, I think it best she at least be supervised. Don't you?" He flicked his hand in a distracted gesture and the crate levitated to elbow level, dirty seawater pouring from its joins. "Come along, no sense all of us getting any wetter now."

Finally, something she could agree with. Callista pulled herself the rest of the way up the ladder, climbing out of the bilge onto the dry planks of the hold. "_Ugh_," she said, feeling the squelch of slimy water in her boots.

Dinah and the magister scrambled up behind her, the ensorcelled crate floating up last and gliding into place amongst the other cargo.

"Are you going to tell the captain?" Dinah looked up at her with a mix of apprehension and challenge, her book of spells tucked under one arm.

Callista raised a brow. To be honest, the idea hadn't even occurred to her. She supposed it was probably the technically correct thing to do, but running to authority had never been her preferred answer to anything. Besides, then she'd have to admit to Verner that she'd almost let a voidwalker eat two of his passengers. "No."

She smiled hesitantly. "Thanks."

"You're just lucky I wasn't Wynda," Callista muttered. Flames flickered in her cupped hand, augmenting the light of the magister's lantern. "Come on, let's get out of here. We smell like the canals at midsummer."

They squeezed back through the crates towards the stairwell, shadows parting before their pool of light and closing in like curtains behind them.

"So, Dinah," Sabrice said with the air of a man about to impart a lesson, "you've seen your first hostile demon. Are you still sure you're being wise?"

"Yes," she said stubbornly after only the briefest of pauses.

Callista snorted.

"Now that you know I'm doing it anyway, you might as well help me," Dinah said to her hopefully.

"That might not be inadvisable," Sabrice said, startling her with his agreement. "My knowledge is mostly academic, I'm afraid. I was never even fluent in spoken Eredun, only written. Maybe if you helped her become acclimated to demons in a controlled setting…"

Callista wrinkled her nose in irritation. The last thing a novice warlock needed was to become "acclimated" to demons. Quite the opposite, in fact. Fel magic could be unpredictable and hard to control, and a warlock early in her training would know exactly enough to be dangerous to herself and little else. A healthy dose of fear would keep her cautious and alive.

Wet, cold, sleepy and annoyed, however, Callista was in no mood to try to articulate this. Instead she just scowled over her shoulder at them. "Absolutely not."

They took another few steps in silence before Dinah's high voice piped up again. "If you don't teach me Eredun, I'll tell the captain you've been summoning demons in the hold."

"_Dinah!_" Sabrice scolded over Callista's peal of surprised laughter.

It was an awkward attempt at coercion and Callista found it, bizarrely, almost endearing. Like a kitten first discovering it had claws. "Better, but no," she said once she'd managed to choke down her amusement. Maybe the girl would do alright after all.

The sullen silence behind her was almost palpable. She glanced back and almost laughed again at Dinah's expression of high indignation, but restrained herself in an uncharacteristic fit of mercy. The girl's face had colored and she'd hunched herself as far as possible into her cloak, clearly not at all appreciating being laughed at. She glared balefully at Callista's inspection.

"You're a _witch_," she muttered sulkily.

That was almost too much for Callista's slippery hold on composure, but she managed to keep herself straight-faced. "In every possible sense," she said dryly.

Magister Sabrice let out a strangled cough.

As they tramped up the stairs into the passenger corridor, Callista was relieved not to see armed sailors waiting for them at the top. Luckily, it seemed their noise hadn't carried above decks.

They parted ways silently, Dinah and the magister entering their own rooms while Callista continued down the hall to her own. Unlike the two mages, who had both been barefoot and had had the forethought to roll up their trouser legs, Callista's boots and leggings were soaked and she was beginning to shiver in the cool night air. Not to mention the smell – she sniffed disgustedly at her sleeve where some water had splashed onto it, but the gesture turned into a yawn halfway through. Hopefully Wynda wouldn't wake her too early tomorrow.

The sound of footsteps padding down the short corridor that led to the officers' quarters arrested her with the back of her hand still covering her mouth. She briefly considered making a dash for her room just to avoid an explanation, but realized she wouldn't make it in time and paused crankily to wait, lowering her arm.

After a short moment, Sir Aren rounded the corner.

She shifted half-heartedly towards her quarters, unsure how he would react to her after their last conversation and, for once, not in the mood for an argument. Like her, the paladin was dressed in afternoon attire instead of his nightclothes, but unlike hers his expression was hazy with sleep. He must've taken the time to change after the noise woke him. "Callista?" he said, looking blearily startled to see her. At least he didn't seem to be angry. "I thought I heard someone scream."

He didn't sound at all sure about it, though, which suited Callista fine. "Don't worry about it," she advised, making to move past him.

He stepped out in front of her, forcing her to stop. "What are you doing up?" he asked, looking her over more closely. His forehead creased in a puzzled frown as he seemed to notice her wet clothes for the first time, and his nose wrinkled slightly. Catching a whiff of bilgewater, no doubt. That hole hadn't smelled at all pleasant.

Mild embarrassment didn't improve Callista's ill temper in the slightest. "Figuring out why some creatures eat their young," she muttered, pushing past his arm.

His mouth opened slightly as though he meant to say something – probably to ask her what in the Light she was talking about – but he seemed to reconsider after a glance at her face and shut it again, watching in bemusement as she stalked past.

Relieved to have escaped, Callista pushed open the door to her quarters, kicking off her sodden boots on the other side with more violence than was necessary. There was a lot she'd gained as a warlock, and more often than not she was pleased with her choice, but every now and then she wondered if just finishing Academy wouldn't have been a lot less _trouble_.

* * *

A/N: The captain's funeral prayer is a modified version of a Catholic prayer for the same purpose. Also, writing this last bit has given me the most horrible urge to write cracky Children's Week fic. Next chapter is Kalimdor!


	11. Landfall

Shouts and the clash of steel rang across the deck of _The __Fortitude_.

Aren sat on a coiled pile of rope near the rail, watching the Redbranches spar back and forth in the middle of a ring of onlookers calling encouragement. Both were clad in light armor and already red-faced beneath the afternoon sun. Nathanial brandished his favorite short sword and buckler, while Ander had discarded his usual poleaxe in favor of a matched pair of cutlasses he'd borrowed from the ship's locker.

Sparks flew from the buckler's studs as Nathanial raised it to block a wild flurry of blows. He lunged and thrust out with his sword beneath it, causing Ander to break off his assault and twist out of the way with a yelp.

He quickly balanced on the balls of his feet, dancing in a circle around Nathanial and occasionally lashing out with one blade or the other, hoping to catch his brother flat-footed.

"You ain't gonna make him dizzy, lad!" an old man crowed to hoots and laughter from the crowd.

A woman shrieked as Nathanial's blade flashed out, parried away a hairsbreadth from laying open Ander's cheek. He grinned and winked at her as he spun past.

A low laugh caught Aren's attention. He looked up to see Luciel watching the mock-battle at his side, hair twisted up and out of the way in a tight braid and sweat sheening the purple skin of her face. Ever since Vorthaal had pronounced her healed enough to walk, she'd spent most of her time on limbering and agility exercises. They seemed to be paying off; her steps were as silent as ever. "His swordmaster would box his ears for that, but he does have flair."

Aren laughed. He'd watched the brothers spar countless times, but despite their seeming recklessness they'd never injured one another beyond a few nicks and bruises. "At the moment, I'm glad he does. I had to break up a brawl in the mess today. They said it was over a missing coin-purse, but I think everyone's just getting restless."

Luciel nodded in agreement, brushing a shadowy wisp of hair back behind a pointed ear. "I miss the shade of the forests, myself. I learned to rise with the sun to better understand your kind, but the light is even harsher on the sea than in your cities. Your people's love for day still puzzles me. Why always walk beneath the sun when it burns your skins?"

Aren absently touched the bridge of his nose where his own sunburn had long ago faded to tan. "Most of us can't see very well in the dark." He paused a moment, fumbling for a more complete answer. "And most of us worship the Holy Light. In many of the parables, darkness is where evil dwells."

She squinted briefly in the direction of the sun's yellow torch, the silvery glow of her eyes barely discernable now. "We think the same of fire."

Aren found that interesting. He knew the night elves' war with the Legion had begun far earlier than his own people's, and he wondered how much of that aversion started with the vile corruption of demonflame. "Well, Light willing, we'll all be out of the sun soon. Captain Verner says we should make port today, and I've heard the clouds over Auberdine never lift."

After those last two deaths more than a week ago, the journey had been mercifully uneventful. The occasional storm had been short and easily weathered and the winds had pushed them swiftly along towards Kalimdor. Other than checking up on those few wounded who remained bedridden, his only duty had been dealing with a pair of disgruntled merchant representatives whose goods had been damaged during the battle and who were demanding compensation. The claim was pure nonsense – the Scourge had assaulted the ship, not the Argent Dawn – but apparently the merchants' gratitude for their lives didn't extend as far as their bottom line.

A loud roar from the crowd heralded the end of the sparring match. He looked over to see Ander lying on the deck with Nathanial's sword pointed at his throat and a large red bump on his forehead where he'd obviously been whacked with the shield.

He groaned dramatically as Nathanial sheathed his blade and the black-haired woman who'd screamed earlier knelt down to check on his bruise. "My head! Murdered in cold blood by my own brother."

"Only if you can die of theatrics," Nathanial said unsympathetically, tilting his head to study the effects of his blow. "I told you you didn't push your helm down far enough!"

"_I _think you look dashing," the kneeling woman said, dabbing ineffectually at the lump with a damp handkerchief.

Nathanial snorted. "Well, he's certainly been dashed."

Luciel laughed as Ander cracked open one of the eyes he'd closed in his "agony" and peered up at his rescuer. "Ander's on the ground, but I'm not certain he hasn't won."

"I'm sure he'd agree with you." The woman was pretty and rather plump, and between how tightly her bodice was laced and the way she was leaning over him, Aren suspected his view was enviable.

Standing, he brushed the clinging rope fibers from his tunic and gazed out towards the glittering blue line where sea met sky. He'd been checking it constantly ever since Verner offhandedly mentioned Auberdine was close, but although the view was lovely, he couldn't muster much more than wary impatience in response to it. This was meant to be the safe part of their journey.

* * *

Callista leaned back against the rail and propped her book up on her stomach, sunning herself in the light that bathed the deck. She occasionally turned a page, but the dense tome on warding runes held less interest for her than the laughter and excited chatter that drifted in the wake of the Redbranches' sparring match. After almost two weeks at sea, the cramped quarters were beginning to chafe. Even reading was losing its appeal.

She kept an ear hopefully cocked for the lookout up in the crow's nest, but so far all she heard was the slap of waves and the noise of her fellow passengers. Scowling unconsciously, she smoothed a page down harder than was really necessary. Now that they were nearing Kalimdor, some of her irritation at her situation (forgotten amidst the chaos of the Scourge attack) had returned. She'd sent a letter to Lord Duncan before she'd set off on this little excursion; since those with the coin always sent their mail by magecraft instead of by ship, his reply had almost certainly reached Auberdine days ago and was waiting for her even now. She itched to know what it said.

Light footsteps padded across the deck towards her and then paused.

"What's that?"

She looked up to see Dinah peering curiously at her book from beneath the hood of her cloak. The girl never seemed to lower it, no matter how warm the sun, and Callista suspected she was avoiding a tan in the hopes of looking more warlock-like.

Since she'd just read the same paragraph twice without registering any of it, she was less annoyed by the interruption than she might have been. Sticking a frayed length of ribbon between the pages to mark her place, she turned the book so Dinah could see the cover. "It's on wards. Malven Icefinger."

Dinah wrinkled her brow and eyed her suspiciously, unsure if she was being teased. "Icefinger's not a warlock, he wrote my third year text. What is it _really_?"

Callista laughed. Their encounter in the hold had convinced her that at least the girl had will (even if she did lack a certain amount of polish), and ever since, she'd treated her less dismissively. The warlock had no desire for an apprentice, and she wasn't about to start recommending courses of study, but she'd answer direct questions if she wasn't otherwise occupied. It was better than leaving her to whatever muddled half-answer Sabrice could dredge up. "It's really a book on warding runes. Believe it or not, fel magic isn't all blood and raining fire."

"I know _that_," Dinah said. She looked at her critically, adjusting the edge of her own hood against marauding sunbeams. "Your nose is turning all pink again."

"Let it," Callista said. After a day or two under the trees at Auberdine it would fade to tan, and the less she resembled the fish-belly white, hook-nosed, green-eyed stereotype of a human warlock, the happier she'd be in the night elven city. Particularly if she were stuck there alone long waiting for the next ship to Stormwind. She still had no intention of accompanying the Dawn on its asinine quest.

After a brief pause, Dinah seemed to remember what she'd come to ask and her expression of vague disapproval faded into curiosity. "What does 'shat'threcht' mean?"

Callista raised a brow. Now there was a word that didn't turn up too often in legitimate texts. "Where did you read _that_?"

"The treatise on summoning circles I'm studying. The author used it to describe switching ox blood for a thinking creature's in the demarcation."

Callista snorted. "Yes, I suppose he would. Don't ever do that, by the way."

"Why?" A pair of young boys tumbled along the deck behind her, giggling and whacking at each other with shards of planks in imitation of the Redbranch brothers, and her eyes darted to see if anyone was eavesdropping before she sat down next to Callista with her back to the rail.

Callista's mouth twitched wryly at her caution. _The Fortitude_ was not a large ship, and after the battle she doubted there was anyone on it who didn't know what she was. Anyone who cared to watch would've noticed the way the apprentice mage sought her out and drawn the obvious conclusion some time ago. If she meant to be subtle about her interest in demonic magic, she'd started far too late. "Because no matter what the druids tell you, not all life is equal. Ritual blood needs to channel the arcane. All thinking creatures have some potential for that, but animals don't. An arcanist's blood is even better, which is why most of the more, uh, _scrupulous_ warlocks use their own." Of course, not all warlocks were scrupulous, which explained a great deal of the average mage's hatred for them. "Demons' blood is best, but that can be hard to come by."

Dinah nodded thoughtfully at that, a few locks of brown hair escaping from beneath her hood. "So what's 'shat'threcht' mean?" She watched her closely and a little suspiciously from the corner of her eye, as though she thought Callista had been intentionally distracting her.

Callista repressed a laugh. That was one thing she gave her credit for; the girl seemed reluctant to drop her initial distrust of her, which made her already far more sensible than many grown men and women she knew. "It means Light-touched. An insult. A fairly nasty one, actually, if you're a demon. Kind of like calling someone a lunatic and a damned idiot all at once."

"Really?" She looked delighted. Dinah was evidently young and well-bred enough that using foul language hadn't lost all of its thrill. "Do you think Magister Sabrice knows?"

"I'm sure he could guess."

She made a sour face. It only scrunched up more as her gaze traveled past Callista to something further down the rail. "Look, those ugly merchants are back pestering Sir Aren again."

Callista turned her head and narrowed her eyes at the sight. Joffren Glasswright (a tall man with a prematurely bald pate and watery blue eyes) and Rizzle Steamrocket (no less attractive than most goblins, but still clearly unappealing to Dinah) stood talking to a resigned-looking Sir Aren, who they'd cornered near one of the lifeboats. Dinah had taken a dislike to the pair after they'd scolded her for sitting on one of their crates while she studied. Callista loathed them because once they'd failed to convince Sir Aren to pay for their lost cargo they'd approached the rest of his company, hoping to persuade them to exert some pressure on him. The mix of arrogance and obsequiousness in their manner (as well as the insultingly low amount of gold they'd offered for her help) had set her teeth on edge to the point she'd spent most of the conversation fantasizing about nailing them into their own crate of broken glassware and heaving it overboard.

Climbing to her feet, she tucked her book under one arm and smoothed out her tunic. Just watching them caused the impatience she was already feeling to flare into annoyance. She liked Sir Aren, and he did an admirable job of chopping up Scourge, but he seemed infuriatingly reluctant to bare his teeth at anyone he considered a civilian.

Callista, however, had no such qualms. And little better to do, either.

"Where are you going?" Dinah asked as Callista rose from her seat.

"To say hello, of course. You stay here."

Dinah made a face at the order, but must've heard something in her tone that discouraged argument. Drawing up her legs, she rested her chin on her knees to watch as Callista approached the two merchants from the back.

Sir Aren's brows lifted as she prowled closer, but before he could greet her she gave a tiny shake of her head.

His brows rose even further, almost disappearing into the blond hair that fell over his forehead, but he kept silent.

The two merchants didn't notice her until she was standing at Joffren's elbow.

He jumped and skittered a half step sideways when she popped into his peripheral vision. "Ah, Miss Dunhaven," he said once he'd recovered. "Good afternoon."

She'd noticed she made him nervous the last time they spoke, which was why she'd chosen to stand so close to his side that her elbow almost brushed his own velvet-clad one. His goblin companion – whose people attached little stigma to fel magic so long as it turned a profit – had been much less cowed. "Hello, Joffren," she said, deliberately leaving off any honorific and smiling beatifically. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"No, no, of course not," he said, failing to meet her eyes.

Rizzle crossed his arms and glared up at her. Callista found the expression less disconcerting than his wide mouthful of teeth. With their oversized grins and pointed features, goblins never failed to remind her of small green barracuda with legs. "Actually, you are," he said bluntly.

"Really?" she said, "accidentally" knocking her elbow against Joffren's and feeling delighted when he flinched. "How unfortunate for you."

"Do you need something, Callista?" Sir Aren asked. His expression was carefully neutral, but she noticed that his hands had unclenched slightly.

"No, but these two seem to."

"Ah, just a minor business matter," Joffren said, smiling nervously as he edged away, "nothing you need concern – "

"You owe us," Rizzle said, ignoring his partner's stammering. "Those decanters alone were worth seven hundred gold!"

"I'm sorry for your loss," Sir Aren said with tight patience (Callista repressed a snort – he made it sound like the creature had lost his mother instead of a heap of fancy glass), "but the Argent Dawn is not responsible for goods destroyed by the Scourge."

"With all due respect, sir," Joffren said, having sidled as far from Callista as he could manage without wedging Rizzle against the rail, "there is some confusion as to _who_, exactly, is responsible for the breakage. While I have no doubt the Scourge contributed greatly to the damage, your own forces were certainly careless as well. I think two-thirds market value would be reasonable compensation."

A muscle in Sir Aren's jaw tightened briefly before he schooled his face back into its calm expression. He opened his mouth to deliver what Callista was sure was an inhumanly placid response to this idiocy, but she jumped in before he could speak. Joffren and Rizzle may have worn the garb of merchants, but at heart they were pigheaded bullies. Courteous deflection they saw only as a signal to press their arguments harder; the ruthless kind of squashing they needed was unlikely to come from Sir Aren. From her, on the other hand…

"_Re_-think it," she snapped, narrowing her eyes on Joffren.

Startled by her sudden veer into hostility, he tried to back away another step but only succeeded in knocking against Rizzle, who cuffed at his waist.

"Watch it!" the goblin snarled. He turned his attention to Callista with his lip pulled back over his teeth. "Not your business, warlock. Tell your commander to pay up and this doesn't need to go any farther."

"'Any farther?'" she echoed, cocking her head in amusement. Goblins, like gnomes, were one of the more diminutive races of Azeroth, and, like gnomes, sometimes had difficulty getting taken seriously by people with a larger stature (and less wisdom). Some of them dealt with this more peaceably than others. Rizzle didn't strike her as the peaceable type, which was why she arranged her face into her most satiric smile. If he wasn't about to take a swing at her, he had more patience than most priests she knew. "I hope that wasn't a threat. I don't think I could stand the terror…"

"Callista," Sir Aren said sharply, shooting her a warning look.

Rizzle colored in fury. Or at least she assumed he did; his cheeks had definitely turned a more emerald shade of green. Joffren, who stood trapped between the two of them, looked ready to bolt or faint.

"Now, now," he said weakly.

"I've killed orcs twice your size," Rizzle hissed, voice shrill as his hand clenched around something hidden in the flowing folds of his cloak. "I'm a chartered bruiser of the Steamrocket Combine – "

"Keep your hands clear," Sir Aren ordered, his own straying to the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword.

They'd gathered a small crowd by now, albeit one gawking from a safe distance. Callista found that very convenient, but what pleased her even more was that no one seemed to have summoned the captain. The man was no fool and had little patience for warlocks; he would surely have separated them all by now.

She laughed, half in genuine disbelief and half because she knew it would cut. "You're a _bruiser_? In your own family's combine? Oh, Nether, what sort of legendary failure did it take to earn _that_? Let an ogre out-haggle you? Drop the family ledger down a well?"

It was a shot in the dark – after all, some goblin families were large, and when there were more children than overseer positions the extras had to be put somewhere through no fault of their own – but she must have hit close enough to the mark.

His face darkened to a blotchy jade and he yanked his hand from beneath his cloak with a wordless snarl of rage, fingers clenched around the stock of a bulky goblin pistol.

Before he could so much as point it at her, however, two things happened. Sir Aren's sword flashed from its scabbard, coming to rest with its edge against Rizzle's neck, and seething ropes of shadow as inky as the blade was bright erupted from the deck beneath the goblin's feet. They boiled up around his chest and arms, twining around his wrist and tightening until he dropped the pistol with a grunt of pain.

The passengers who'd been gawking shrieked and fled. A flutter of motion at the corner of her eye seized Callista's attention, and she jammed the hand still holding her book out to block Joffren as he tried to follow them. "Oh, no. Not _you_."

Sir Aren kicked the dropped pistol so it spun away across the planks but didn't remove his blade from Rizzle's neck. The glyphs on it blazed with golden light, and Callista's shadows frayed at the edges where they writhed too close to the blessed weapon. "Alright. He's disarmed," he said. "You can let him go."

Callista studied the goblin with satisfaction as he squirmed in a translucent net of shadow the greenish-purple of bruised skin. A skein drawn across his mouth limited his comments to outraged squeaks. "I could."

She turned to Joffren instead. The man had hunched himself down as far as he could into his velvet-lined cloak, eyes big with fear. He was larger than her and probably could've pushed past her arm if he'd tried, but seemed too skittish to make the attempt. "This is outrageous," he muttered weakly. "The Steamrocket Combine – "

"Isn't here." He was too tall for Callista to effectively look down her nose at, so she didn't try. Instead she inspected the backs of the nails on her free hand, making a show of ignoring the iridescent shadows still massing around the hapless goblin. He might've disappeared inside them entirely if it hadn't been for the golden glow of the paladin's sword burning them away around his neck. "Now, you were saying something about a debt?"

"A small matter, hardly worth mentioning, just a huge misunderstanding in fact – Aah!" A questing tendril of shadow curled around his cheek, and he yelped and cringed away as though burned. He hadn't been, though he might well be if this went on too long. Fel magic wasn't constructed to be harmless, and the shadows writhing behind him were the real article. The air was as staticky and pregnant with potential as it was before a thunderstorm, but with a heavier undercurrent of dread.

"A misunderstanding? So you agree that no one but the Scourge owes you anything."

"Yes! Yes, exactly. A piddling loss anyway, hardly worth anyone's time…" Sweat beaded on his nose and forehead despite the empty chill that accompanied the rising tide of magic.

"That's enough," Sir Aren said to her firmly, watching the shadows that slid away from his sword warily. "You shouldn't have provoked them like that to begin with."

Callista held up one of the fingers of her free hand at him behind her back - just another minute. She didn't think they were quite frightened enough of her yet, not enough to remember when they were out of her sight. "Good. Now take out your parchment – I know you have some, you were waving it at me enough before – and write it down." The strain of keeping her spell from turning Rizzle into a greenish puddle of corroded goo was making the harshness in her voice less feigned than she would've liked, and the fact she loathed the grasping little monster didn't help. Neither did Sir Aren's sword, which still shone like a blade-shaped sun and seemed to slice at the very bonds that held her power in its place.

"_Enough_, Callista." Sir Aren spoke up again as Joffren was scrabbling desperately in his pockets for a quill, and this time there was real iron in his voice. "You've made your point."

"Have I? You'll regret not letting him finish that. They'll have a bill at the doors of the Argent outpost before their cargo makes it down the gangway."

"We won't! I swear it!" Joffren gasped, fingers shaking so much ink jumped from the well in his hand. Bruised shadows, even more unnatural than usual beneath the bright sunlight, continued to writhe around Rizzle's struggling form behind him until he looked more like some kind of eldritch horror than a goblin.

"Maybe so. Let them go anyway. They're terrified." Sir Aren stirred his sword gently, trying to clear away some of the shadows clinging to Rizzle's face.

"They're supposed to be." She twitched one side of her mouth, hesitating theatrically, but after a moment she relented, half because she thought they really were frightened enough and half because the effort of keeping her magic in check was wearing on her. With a flick of her hand, the menacing shadows boiled away like morning mist.

Rizzle stumbled back against the rail as the magic binding him dissolved but quickly straightened, paler than he had been but otherwise no worse for wear.

Callista stepped aside and gestured sardonically to Joffren. He balked a moment, then darted past her at as close to a run as his dignity would allow, ink sloshing from the well he still clutched in his hand to stain his fingers. Rizzle shot her a glare that was too shaky to be truly baleful as he followed, but remained silent.

Sir Aren sheathed his sword once they'd gone and turned to face her with reproach and a little anger. "That wasn't a very honorable solution."

Callista met his gaze with unrepentant frankness. Honor ranked very low on her own personal list of priorities, and she'd never expected the paladin to approve. In fact, she'd wagered on him not noticing her game at all; if he'd realized he was playing the noble knight to her menacing villain he almost certainly would've put a stop to it much more quickly. "It wasn't a very honorable problem. They were trying to extort you."

"That's no excuse to respond in kind." He paused, apparently following a similar line of thought as she had. "I should've stopped you sooner."

"You shouldn't have stopped me at all. They might've learned something."

"What, that there's always a bigger bully in the yard? That isn't a lesson the Light means us to teach."

"No? And what lesson would it prefer? If those two go down to the Argent outpost and whinge long enough your superiors will throw them some gold just to stop the screeching. Better they learn there's always a bigger bully than continue under the delusion that they're it."

He paused, studying her face for long enough that Callista began to wonder if her vicious cynicism had struck him speechless before he responded. "You're better than that."

It was such an unlikely thing to say that for a moment she just stared, dissecting his tone for sarcasm that she didn't find. Even Tun, who was her best friend in the world and liked her more than anyone, knew better than to claim she was above anything. If he was serious (and he always seemed to be), Sir Aren was either the blindest optimist or the poorest judge of character she had ever met. "Doubtful. But I'm certainly better _at_ _it_."

Sir Aren just gave a brief, crooked smile (and all his smiles, she'd noticed, were a little lopsided, as though he'd been out of practice once and hadn't quite recovered the knack yet), watching her intently enough that she actually felt a small flush of discomfort before he shook his head. "I'm sure those two poor merchants used to say the same. And what will you do when you find your own nastier match?"

Callista considered that for a moment, then cocked her head impishly. "Marry him, probably."

For a moment she thought he was actually, improbably, going to laugh, but he caught himself in time, marshalling his features back into an exasperated frown. He opened his mouth (to continue scolding her, no doubt), then seemed to change his mind and shut it again. Instead he rolled his eyes in surrender, the way he did when Ander made a particularly perverse quip. "It's easier to picture you setting that tentacled beast of yours on him."

Delighted to have gotten around him, she answered with a more devilish look than usual. "I can't try both?"

He shook his head again and this time he really did laugh. "I pity your future husband."

Callista thought about pointing out that he was probably pitying no one, then decided against it. She'd given more serious thought to joining the Burning Legion than she ever had to marriage; her lifestyle didn't lend itself very well to commitment, consistency, honesty, or a whole slew of other things common wisdom held were necessary for it. This wasn't information she generally volunteered, though. Some people seemed to consider a young woman who didn't want children even more unnatural than a warlock.

She quirked a brow instead. "Why? I thought we just established he was worse."

"I suppose we did. Whatever happened to women wanting white knights?"

She tilted her head, trying to decide if he was flirting with her or just oblivious. The paladin wore the onyx and silver tabard of the Argent Dawn today, not white, but she'd always preferred black knights anyway. "They went out with puffed sleeves and smelling salts," she said, compromising by teasing him only a little. "_I_ always wanted to marry a pirate."

Speaking of pirates, she was surprised Captain Verner hadn't already come over to shout at her for frightening his passengers. The man had shown her somewhat less contempt since she'd helped save his ship, but not that much; it would probably be best to let Sir Aren deal with him. She supposed those white knights had their uses after all.

Whatever Sir Aren may have answered to her dig was interrupted by the stentorian yell of the lookout posted in the crow's nest.

"Land ahead! Laaaand ahead!"

Cheers and whistles rose clear from the passengers on deck and floated up muffled from those below. She thought she could pick out Ander's distinctively raucous whoop among the voices and laughed in response.

"Over at last," Sir Aren said, shading his brow with his hand and squinting out towards the horizon.

Callista followed his gaze, but her eyes weren't sharp enough to make out anything over the hard gleam of the waves. This wasn't over yet, but once she got ashore she intended to make it that way.

* * *

"Not bad," Wynda said, smacking her lips and swirling the frothy beer in her mug, "but no Ironforge brew."

They sat in the common room of the Fish Eye Tavern, empty except for a chattering trio of gnomes in one corner and a pair of bored-looking Sentinels near the bar. Auberdine was an important port for the Alliance in Kalimdor, but the damp fog that perpetually shrouded it discouraged most travelers from lingering. Those who did mostly preferred the more cheerful inn in the center of town to the seedy Fisheye, but Aren had chosen it for its proximity to the road to Felwood, not its atmosphere.

He took an experimental sip of his own mug of the house brew. Not quite as thick and bitter as the stouts the dwarves favored, but it had an unusual nutty flavor that he found he liked. "I'm surprised the barley will grow at all in this soup."

Thick grey mist gathered outside the warped glass of the windows, and the smoke swirling around the gracefully-carved rafters made it seem as though the gloom had crept inside as well. Even so, it couldn't dampen his good mood at finally being off that ship.

Vorthaal drained half his mug in one swig and then sniffed dismissively at the remainder. "I have had much worse, but all of your ale tastes like strange water to me. When we return you must come with me to the Exodar and I will show you true drink."

Wynda laughed. "Strange water, aye? Come with me to Dun Morogh and I'll show you what _real_ beer tastes like. Thick enough to cut with a knife and strong enough to knock even a draenei onto his tailed arse."

Vorthaal smiled in return, eyes bright in the smoky dimness. "Is that a challenge?"

"Better hope not," Nathanial said, wiping foam from his mouth with the back of a hand. "Wynda could out-drink a monsterbelly."

"Don't listen to my brother," Ander put in with a grin. "He's just sore 'cause he's a lightweight."

"Uh-huh. And _which_ of us was it who threw up all over the Trade District last Brewfest?"

"I don't remember that!"

"I'll _bet_ you don't," Nathanial grumbled. "I'm surprised the canals didn't run green until solstice."

"Ach. My infant nephew could drink you _both_ under the bar," Wynda said impishly, "and then drink that too. Human lads just don't start young enough."

Aren left them to their banter, content to sip his beer in silence. He'd had a long afternoon supervising the unloading of their supplies and mounts, and even though it was nearly a bell before sundown he was already ready to retire. He probably would've done so already, if he hadn't been waiting for Luciel and Callista to return. Callista more so than Luciel, if truth be told. While the night elf was simply visiting friends who lived near the port, Callista had gone to the tradepost to check for letters from her highly-placed friends in Stormwind, and she'd made no secret of the fact she was still looking for a way to free herself of their journey. While Aren was angry at whoever had dared try to blackmail her into helping them, he was ashamed to acknowledge the small, selfish hope that she wouldn't find what she was looking for. He wanted her with them, for both practical reasons and others he didn't care to examine too closely.

"Maybe we should settle this right now," Ander suggested, waggling his brows playfully.

Vorthaal shifted on his oversized stool so it creaked under his weight, eyeing Aren uncertainly. "Are you sure that that is wise? We must leave at first light tomorrow."

Aren hid a smile by taking another swallow of his own drink. He couldn't responsibly tell his command that he'd turn a blind eye if they were sluggish next morning, but this was the last night in a real town they were likely to get before they reached Felwood, and he would rather they got it out of their systems now. The Light taught moderation in all things, but too much moderation was as bad for morale as too little. "As long as you can sit a mount at daybreak…"

"Don't worry, Nate will help me tie you on to make up for the embarrassment you're about to suffer," Ander said with wide-eyed sympathy.

Vorthaal snorted and flicked his thick tail dismissively against the leg of his stool. "I have been drinking since before your great-grandsires were born."

Pursing his lips amiably at Wynda, Aren stood and drained what was left in his mug. His company was small, and his relationship with his soldiers was much friendlier than he'd had with many of his own commanders, but he still knew they'd enjoy themselves more if he made himself scarce. That had stung once, when he'd taken his first command amid the decaying ruins of Andorhal; he'd already lost so much, and being set apart from the few of his friends who remained living had seemed an unexpected, unfair kind of hurt. It had gotten easier since then, though. Or maybe he'd just gotten better at setting aside that kind of companionship. "I'm going to go see if I can track down Luciel or Callista."

Vorthaal and the twins were too absorbed in their argument to take any notice, but Wynda nodded a farewell.

As he stepped out of the smoky confines of the tavern, Aren took a deep breath of the humid air. Though it was tinged with salt from the nearby sea, the green smell of growing things was still welcome after so long away from land.

He followed the cobbled street towards Tassik's Tradepost, nodding politely at the occasional night elf who crossed his path. They all returned the gesture cordially enough, but there was nothing warm in their expressions. On the one other occasion he'd visited Auberdine, he'd found it to be a cheerless place, and that impression was only solidified on this second visit. Even the weeds that poked up through the cobbles looked washed out. The sky was a misty grey, and long pine boughs dipped low over the road in some places, dripping moisture.

"Sir Aren!"

Recognizing Callista's voice, he tipped his chin in acknowledgment as a figure resolved itself through the fog.

She broke into a half jog to meet him, holding in one hand what looked to be a letter with an elaborate wax seal at the bottom of it. "I take back anything awful I ever said about the nobility," she said as she halted before him. Clad in her usual grey cloak with the mist pearling in her hair, he thought she looked rather elegant, though he had an impulse to press a healing prayer to the sunburn splotched across her nose that he was sure she would've laughed at.

"You got your letter?" he asked rather inanely, trying to sound more pleased than he felt.

She laughed. "Oh, yes. Full immunity, in fact. Lord Duncan doesn't believe in half measures."

Looking closer at the parchment she offered for his inspection, he noticed that the blue wax of the seal was flecked with gold leaf that glittered in the dimness. King Anduin's childish signature scrawled across the letter beside it. No half measures, indeed. He wondered what favors she'd called in to gain that pardon, or how much she now owed her noble benefactor. "Good. I'm glad it worked out for you."

Her head tilted as she watched him, and he refused to drop her gaze as she eyed him closely for a long silent moment. "I did tell you I wasn't coming," she said finally, more gently than he might have expected.

"I – yes, I know you did. But…why not reconsider?" he said, words spilling out before even he was sure what his argument was. "That's a royal pardon, no one can force you into anything anymore. And you've already come all the way to Kalimdor. It would be an adventure."

She folded up her letter and tucked it into a small leather pouch that hung at her side. "I'm not looking for adventure. I'm not a crusader." She kept her voice soft, but there was an edge beneath it.

He refused to be deterred by it. "Neither am I, or the Argent Dawn. This isn't some holy assault to cleanse Felwood. Just an opportunity to help."

Her mouth twitched with the barest hint of amusement. "The greater good? Is that the best argument you can make for me to risk my life for you?"

He hesitated awkwardly for a moment. What did she expect him to say to that? What _could_ he say? "Of course," he lied stiffly. "There's no greater cause under the Light."

"And how convenient that is." He'd always liked watching her eyes, which were an attractive shade of grey and held an almost perpetual amusement he found fascinating, but there was something unpleasantly sardonic in them now. Whatever she'd expected him to say, he'd obviously chosen poorly. "I'm heading back to the tavern. Goodbye, Sir Aren, if I don't see you before daybreak."

"Aren is fine," he said dully and somewhat irrelevantly, trying to sort out a bewildered tangle of emotion and startled by the abrupt end of the conversation. "You're not in my company anymore, it doesn't…"

"Goodbye, Aren, then," she said.

The edge of her cloak brushed his arm as she moved past, and his fingers twitched with a sudden impulse to grab her elbow to stop her, but he wasn't any surer how to convince her now than he'd been ten heartbeats earlier and so he simply let her go.

After she'd vanished down the cobbled street, he continued to watch the mist swirl lacy patterns in the space she'd left. He had to follow her, of course – there was nowhere for him to go but back to the tavern, himself – but he was loath to run into her again on the path. _Idiot_, he thought to himself savagely. Though he couldn't quite make up his mind as to where the stupidity lay; whether it was in the way he'd bungled the conversation or the fact he'd hoped for any other answer from her. The woman was a _warlock_, for Light's sake. Maybe it was a blessing she'd left before he'd had the chance to do anything even more foolish.

Somehow he couldn't quite make himself believe it, though.

Judging that he'd given her a safe-enough head start, he began wandering back towards the tavern, slowly so as not to catch up. Fat drops of condensation plopped down from the pine boughs that overhung the street. He silently asked the Light for clarity, but all he got was chilled as a particularly large branch shed its cloak of droplets onto his bare head. He would miss her, he realized uncomfortably, and not just for her knack with the arcane. Whatever Callista's flaws, she was clever, self-possessed, and made it almost impossible to brood in her presence. When she looked at him, he saw neither the pity nor the glory-worship he'd found in the eyes of so many women since he'd escaped the wrack of Lordaeron, and that was comforting. Aren thought of himself as any number of things, when he bothered to think of himself at all – soldier, survivor, servant of the Holy Light – but victim and war hero were two titles that sat equally ill on him. Whatever Callista thought of him (and he wasn't foolish enough to imagine that those thoughts were always flattering), at least he was sure that her opinions were of _him_.

The weathered grey door of the Fisheye Tavern appeared ahead like a solidifying of the fog. He eyed it warily for a moment before a flush of embarrassment for loitering outside the door like a farmboy at his first harvest dance steeled his resolve. Under the pretense of checking that the inn had found proper accommodations for his destrier, he headed off towards the stables.

* * *

When she pushed open the door, Callista was amused to find Wynda, Vorthaal and the Redbranches with their heads tilted back in identical gestures as they downed shots of some murky brown liquor.

"I hope you ordered one for me," she said, sliding onto the empty stool next to Wynda.

"Ugh, here, take mine," Nathanial said, gagging and pushing a shot glass across the table at her. "Dwarvish whiskey, tastes like something they use to fuel those gyropters."

"Quitter," Ander said, despite the fact he had the sickly-pale expression of a man struggling to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged.

Wynda snorted good-naturedly. She didn't look nearly as miserable as the two men, but her freckled nose had flushed almost as red as her hair. "You both drink like little gnome lasses."

"That is most foul," Vorthaal said, though he sounded almost admiring. He tugged thoughtfully at the ring that adorned one of his facial tendrils as he eyed his second shot glass.

Suddenly suspecting she'd made a horrible mistake, Callista sniffed at her glass and immediately wished she hadn't as the reek of raw alcohol burned her nose. She wasn't about to back down now, though. Especially not after everyone else had tried it. Holding her breath, she rested the rim of the shot glass on her bottom lip and threw her head back sharply.

Despite the fact she couldn't taste anything, the sensation of the liquor searing its way to her belly was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She'd drunk an entire flagon of molasses firewater last Lunar Festival (mostly because Tun seemed to think she couldn't) and the next morning found that the stuff had raised blisters on her tongue, but this was by far worse. "Twisting Nether," she choked once she was sure the liquor wasn't going to follow the words up.

Wynda laughed heartily at her reaction and thumped her on the back. "Head up, lass, the second one's always easier."

Recognizing a bald-faced lie when she heard one, Callista made a face, scrunching up her nose and working her mouth as she tried to rid herself of the aftertaste. "That is distilled _evil_."

"You would know," Ander said, prodding his empty shot glass distrustfully with a fingertip and winking at her.

She bared her teeth playfully at him, but as the distraction of the terrible whiskey wore off her nagging sense of discomfort returned. This time tomorrow, she'd be waiting for a boat to Stormwind while everyone else at this table was halfway to Felwood. It was what she'd hoped for ever since she'd set foot on _The Fortitude_, but now that she'd gotten it she was loath to tell her companions that she was leaving. It felt unpleasantly (_and completely irrationally_, she told herself sharply) like betrayal.

"_I'll _get the next round," Nathanial said, pushing back his stool and gathering up the empty shot glasses. "Wynda is trying to murder our insides."

"Only the weak bits. They were probably only slowing down the rest anyway."

Callista snorted, wondering where Sir Aren had gone after their encounter on the street. Not back here, obviously…the thought caused her another of those uncomfortable pangs. She hadn't meant to cut things off like that. She'd never expected him to beg her to stay, but she hadn't expected an earful of trite piousness either, and that had irritated her. She could appreciate a good lie, but bad ones were just insulting.

Nathanial returned with a large stoppered jug in one hand and an armful of cups gathered against his chest with the other. "Moonberry wine," he said, setting his load down on the table with a clatter. "Not as strong, but I thought we could use something sweet after that."

"You say that like I can still feel my tongue," Ander said, sticking out the appendage in question and poking at it.

"Did you happen to run into Sir Aren out there, lass?" Wynda asked as she accepted a cup.

_Yes, and promptly sent him running the other way._ "Only for a moment. I don't know where he went after."

Wynda nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer.

Callista took a sip of her own wine and found it, as promised, dry and slightly sweet. Very good, actually, but she realized to her own consternation that she couldn't enjoy it. Feeling a sudden urge to pace, she stood, pushing her stool back abruptly enough that it teetered onto its back legs and fell upright again with a clatter. "I'll be back," she said, repressing a wince as she steadied it. "I just need to stretch after all that sailing."

It was a weak excuse, but no one seemed to question it. Ander's wave as he acknowledged her departure was sloppier than usual, and she wondered how much they'd had to drink before she sat down. Being the soberest one in the room was never any fun anyway, and she wasn't in the mood to try to catch up.

She strode out past a pair of Sentinels who eyed her briefly as she shoved open the door, then stood for a moment in the chilly fog that swallowed the town. The grey afternoon was fading into a murky twilight, and the cool breeze seemed only to stir the mist into more phantasmagoric shapes without dispersing it. With no real destination in mind, she began wandering around the side of the tavern, leaving dark footprints in her wake as she knocked the silvery dew from the grass.

A pall always seemed to hang over Auberdine. It reminded Callista a little of a graveyard, or the ravaged plain of some terrible long-ago battlefield, but as far as she knew no such tragedy had occurred here. Maybe she was just letting her own foul mood color her surroundings. Even so, she found the idea of spending several days alone here waiting for a ship highly unpleasant.

Rounding the corner of the inn, she caught sight of the distinctive broad-shouldered, black-and-silver-garbed figure of Sir Aren exiting the large stable at its back and froze uncertainly.

The question of whether he'd seen her or not was answered when he paused a moment before walking straight for her.

She crossed her arms and waited resignedly for him, not sure she cared for the purposefulness of his stride. He had the look of a man who had made up his mind and was determined to do something about it, and she couldn't imagine herself being very pleased over anything he'd decided.

When he'd approached to a comfortable speaking distance, he stopped and smiled somewhat wryly at her. "If you're going to check on your horse, don't bother. The stablekeep is Kaldorei, and I think he likes those animals better than he does us."

Not quite the confrontational opening she'd expected, but she remained wary anyway. "No, just out for some air." She waved a hand, fraying the mist between her spread fingers. "Such as there is."

He nodded silently, then seemed to hesitate, smile falling into a more serious expression.

Sensing he wanted to broach his real point but also aware that she was much better at enduring awkward silences than he was, Callista left him to dangle rather than voicing an opening. If he insisted on having this conversation again, she supposed she owed him enough to listen, but that didn't mean she had to make it easy.

"Look," he said finally, lowering his voice. "I know I didn't make a very convincing argument last time, but I honestly think you're making a mistake by leaving. Ah, no, let me finish," he said, cutting her off as she opened her mouth to interrupt. "I know you're angry about how this started, and justifiably so. You don't want to play into the hands of whoever forced you here, but I don't think running blindly back to Stormwind is the right choice either."

She tilted her head, wholly unconvinced but curious as to where Sir Aren thought he was going with this, leaving her arms crossed. "Oh, trust me, I have no intention of running blindly anywhere."

"Then you know who did this to you?"

"No," she said dismissively. Not yet, at least. She may not have had a name, but what she _did_ have was gold (her demon-catching business had proven extremely lucrative), and that was nearly as good. Between the wars with the Burning Legion on Outland, the Horde closer to home, and the Defias bandits in its own backyard, Stormwind's coffers had become distressingly empty of late, and noble titles were being sold with far less of the traditional insistence on respectability. Provided one knew how (expensively) to ask, of course. Callista's plan included buying one, using the purchased influence to hunt down whoever was responsible for blackmailing her, and sticking what shreds of his soul were left after her demons were finished with him in a jar over her fireplace. She doubted, however, that Sir Aren would think much of a plan that involved bribery and power-mongering to facilitate murder, and so she chose not to scandalize him with the truth.

"Do you even know what they want from you?" he pressed.

"No."

"Then why not come with us. It's probably your best chance of learning something you can use."

"Or getting a felguard's axe as a permanent hat," she said skeptically.

He smiled briefly at that, then shook his head. The gesture caused a swath of blond hair to fall over one of his eyes in a way that might have been endearing, if Callista had been the kind of woman softheaded enough to be swayed by such things. "Do you ever let anyone talk you into anything?"

She uncrossed her arms and shrugged, trying to inject as much apology as she could into the gesture to lessen the sting of refusal. "Only if I meant to do it anyway."

"Fine. I'll dispense with reason, then," he said, lifting his mouth in a half-smile. "Why not do it for friendship?"

She laughed. "I'd return overdue tomes from the Mage's Sanctum for friendship. Strolling blithely through a Burning Legion stronghold, however…"

"Sounds like you need to find better friends."

Her mind jumped suddenly to Tun, standing with her on the red sands of a strange world while flame seared the sky and demons tore each other to pieces around her, and even though she'd never believed in letting honesty get in the way of a useful conversation she couldn't bring herself to continue the lie. "Not true," she said more seriously.

After that there was silence. Mist swirled around them, and Callista suddenly realized how dark it had gotten. The stable was unlit, and she could no longer make out its low outline through the black curtain of fog. Muffled voices traveled ghostly through the logs of the tavern wall to her left, and she shivered in the sea-scented breeze that blew in from the water. It was cold, now that the sun had gone down.

She was just about to suggest they move back inside when the brush of his hand against her cheek stopped her. She froze, surprised – the man had sometimes seemed so stiffly full of honor she'd suspected he'd ask her to marry him before he'd touch her, but perhaps that had been unfair – as he traced her jaw with the calloused pad of his thumb.

She _should_ push him away, but she _wanted_ not to.

For a moment she hesitated, letting him cup her cheek in his sword-roughened palm but not returning the gesture, until annoyance and disgust at her own indecision asserted themselves and she pulled his hand away. "You don't want to do that," she said, trying to keep her voice light but not quite managing.

"If I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't have done it." In the dark he smelled of hay and horse and the oil he used to care for his armor, and why did he always have to be so wretchedly _earnest_.

"I'm _not_ going with you, and I'm not doing this either," she said, narrowing her eyes and putting more steel into her words than she felt. Callista had always liked her arguments complicated and her relationships simple, and this reeked of complicated if she'd ever smelled it. Maybe Sir Aren was foolish enough not to care, but she knew better.

"This isn't about whether you stay or go," he said gently, reaching out for her again but not quite touching her cheek.

She laid her fingers on the back of his hand and nudged it away firmly but as kindly as she knew how. "Neither is this."

She felt more than saw him watching her through the opaque night, but he didn't try to touch her again. This was the right thing, she was certain; she was already conflicted enough about her choices without adding some ridiculous entanglement to the mix. Besides, they'd make a terrible match. He was gentle, honorable to a fault, completely honest, Twisting Nether, he was a genuine Light-worshipping _paladin_…

"I thought you'd say that," he said, and she could hear that lopsided smile in his voice as he turned to leave, "but I've already lost too many chances to circumstance to start giving them up for cowardice."

Suddenly unsure, she actually reached out a hand to stop him before she caught herself. That was a terrible idea, it was already over, all she had to do was let him go…but everything was relative, a traitorous voice whispered, and next to the long litany of idiotic things she'd done for much worse reasons she wasn't sure this even ranked.

"Aren, wait," she said.

When he turned to look at her again, she kissed him.

* * *

A/N: Whew, sorry for the delay on this one, but it's a little longer to make up for it. FYI, it's possible I'll switch the rating of this to M in coming chapters (for various members of the Burning Legion doing horrible things to various people and occasionally vice-versa), so even though most of you probably browse ffn with all ratings selected I figured I'd give the heads up just in case. As always, thanks for reading!


	12. Crossroads

She'd almost left anyway.

Callista woke with a start in the dark room, feeling the warm heavy weight of a man's arm across her chest. It couldn't have been far past midnight; faded squares of starlight patched the coverlet, but murky shadows hid the edges of the room. She tensed quietly, annoyed with herself. She hadn't meant to fall asleep. Not if she wanted to slip out of the inn before dawn, and it would be much harder with Aren holding her like that.

He'd said this wasn't about whether she stayed or went...

His slow breaths warmed her shoulder. Turning her head against the pillow, her gaze lingered for a moment on his tousled hair and the way sleep had smoothed the strain from his usually taut features. A soft, heavy wave of exhaustion rolled over her. It would be so much easier to stay.

But the path of least resistance, in this case, led through Felwood. Was it truly worth it?

Holding her breath, Callista shifted carefully out from under his arm towards the edge of the mattress, wincing at every crunch of the straw within. Fortunately, Aren never stirred, even when his hand dropped from her chest to the blanket beneath.

The flagstones were cold against her bare feet as she padded to the crumpled pile of fabric near the door and pulled on the rest of her clothes. She picked up her boots in one hand, shivering in the night air, and couldn't stop herself from looking back at the rumpled blankets and the sleeping man beneath them. Guilt pricked at her. This wasn't the first time she'd crept out of a strange room well before dawn, but it was the first time she suspected she might feel bad about it later. Aren wasn't just some nameless stranger from The Slaughtered Lamb, after all. He deserved better.

Callista's eyes narrowed against the shadows. But then, she deserved better than to be muscled into some scatterbrained quest she wanted no part of. Whoever really got what they deserved anyway? She'd made him no promises.

Creeping to the door, she pulled it open only the sliver she needed to slip out and closed it silently behind her.

The corridor beyond was dim, only every other lantern glowing on its hook. The room she shared with Wynda was one door down from Aren's, and, much to her discomfort, bars of light winked from the gaps in the frame. Callista made a face. Leaning against the wall, she pulled on her boots by hopping awkwardly on one leg. She'd been hoping the dwarf was already asleep, but it appeared she wasn't going to be that lucky. Well, maybe the other woman had simply forgotten to douse the lantern.

Callista opened the door, and Wynda raised her head from the small table near the window and quirked an auburn brow at her. Her gaze was surprisingly clear, given the sharp smell of booze that wafted from the room. Much to Callista's amusement, she was clad only in her undyed cotton underthings, freckled arms crossed on the tabletop. "Back already, lass?"

Callista wrinkled her nose in feigned ignorance. "'Already'? It's got to be close to dawn." She peered more closely at Wynda. "What happened to your clothes? Don't tell me Ander talked you into one of his drinking games."

Wynda laughed and waved a hand at the scattered articles flung across her bed. "I spilled a glass o' whiskey and the smell was makin' my head spin."

Callista snorted good-naturedly. Wynda really _was_ drunk. Her words were deceptively unslurred, but her Ironforge brogue had noticeably thickened. "Yes, I'm sure it was only the _smell_ making you sick."

"Ach, don't you give me that tone! They haven't yet brewed the drink that'll turn a dwarf's stomach." She chuckled. "Though that's more than I can say for the twins. Vorthaal had to carry one out under each arm like sleepy baby lambs." Her grin shifted into a sagely approving expression. "Now there's a man of the Light who can hold his liquor." She muttered something under her breath that Callista couldn't quite catch, but sounded suspiciously like "Pity about the hooves."

Callista gave a whoop of laughter and plopped onto her bed, pulling off her boots with a grin. "Oh, really? Well, if the worst you can say is you don't like his _feet_…"

Wynda clucked her tongue at her. "You know what I meant!"

"Uh-huh."

There was a brief companionable silence. Wynda's voice, when she spoke again, was gentle. "So, what _are_ you doin' up, lass? Not plannin' on just vanishin', I hope. I think we've all at least earned a proper goodbye."

That startled her, but Callista was too practiced a liar to let it show. "Vanish?" She arched a brow in confusion. "Wrong kind of arcanist..."

"I know what you are." There was no malice in the statement or her gaze, but it still made Callista want to fidget uncomfortably. She had the same knowing, direct look Tun always had when he'd caught her out at something and wasn't letting her get away with it. The thought of her friend caused her another unpleasant twinge. She suspected he wouldn't exactly approve of what she was planning to do.

"You're a pretty liar, but it's clear you're no mercenary. Aren told me why you're here."

Callista grimaced. So much for sneaking off without a scene. "Then you know why I'm leaving."

"Aye, I know why you say you are – but I think it's a poor excuse."

Callista leaned forward aggressively, curling her short nails into the quilt she sat on. "Why? Doesn't it worry you that your whole mission may be based on lies?"

Wynda snorted. "If that were true, I'd wager a few falsehoods would worry you a great deal less than me."

Callista narrowed her eyes at the jab, but made no retort; she supposed she deserved that.

"At its heart, it's a matter of trust," Wynda continued. "Our High Command are good, competent men and women. So is Sir Aren. I don't believe they'd deliberately send us wrong, or that they're the Light-addled fools you seem to think they are – and don't me give that look, lass, you've made it very clear what you think o' our faith. Whatever you did to make someone cast your name in where it didn't belong, doesn't mean the whole mission is corrupt. Muradin's beard, maybe even that was just a mistake. Not every misfortune is black conspiracy. Hang around with fiends too much and eventually you start to think like them."

Callista scowled. She was willing to take her knocks where she'd earned them, but there was only one person on Azeroth who got to lecture her that way, and it was not a drunk (albeit impressively lucid) dwarf in her underwear. "If you think_ I_ sound like a fiend, then you've never really met one. Though you will, if you insist on strolling through Felwood. Spare me your Argent fairytales."

"Peace, lass," Wynda said, holding up her hands placatingly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Oh, no? Then what did you mean?"

Wynda sighed and looked at her frankly. "I think you're a sharp-tongued piece of work, for one thing," she grumbled. "But more than that, I think you're leaving because you're angry. You think someone's wronged you, and you want to punish them. I think you should reconsider. Even if you're right, isn't runnin' back to Stormwind full o' fury and felfire exactly what whoever did this would expect you to do?"

Possible, but unlikely. "Unless they never expected me to make it back at all."

Wynda chuckled briefly. "Are there really that many people out to kill you?"

Callista scrunched up her nose, made to retort, then actually thought about it. If she were honest, then no, she supposed there weren't. Given what she was, her reputation (as far as she knew) was fairly benign. "Even so. Why should I go with you? It's risky, and there's nothing at all I could possibly gain."

"Are you so certain of that?"

Callista cocked her head coolly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Wynda twitched the corner of her mouth, unimpressed. "Say whatever you like. Just think it over. You're right that it's likely to be dangerous. But the danger will be much less with someone who knows how to deal with those creatures. Whether you want to hear it or not, we need you."

Callista shifted defensively. Your needs are _not_ my responsibility, was what she wanted to sneer. But the words stuck to her tongue even as she began to speak, and somewhere along the way she'd become too fond of the other woman to want to be that cruel. Instead she groaned and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Twisting Nether, it was too late and she was far too tired to deal with this. She actually missed treating with her "fiends" as Wynda called them; say what you would about demons, at least their conversations were never overburdened with feelings.

"I need to sleep," she muttered, crawling into bed without bothering to undress. The idea of hauling herself and all her things across the damp Auberdine night to another tavern had become too harrowing to seriously consider. And if the Last Haven had closed, she'd need to sleep outside, which would be even worse. She could leave in the morning. Waking before the others wouldn't be difficult, if their general level of sobriety was anything like Wynda's.

Flopping facedown onto the mattress, she pulled the pillow over her head, hoping Wynda would take the hint.

She didn't.

"One last thing, lass."

She paused until Callista capitulated, rolling onto her side and shifting the pillow to peer at her crankily out of one eye.

"I don't know what you and Aren think you're up to, and I daresay he's a grown man who can look after himself. I will say if either o' you are after more than a quick roll, you're both knuckleheaded fools, and I won't hold it against either o' you when it all falls apart. But ," - for the first time in the conversation, she looked truly stern – "be any crueler than you need to be, and I'll box your ears so hard your ancestors will hear the ringin'."

Now that was just uncalled for. Glaring balefully out of her visible eye, Callista spat a sharp curse in demonic at the serious braid-framed face above her.

Wholly unoffended, Wynda settled back into her chair. "I'll have to remember some of that for the fiends." Yawning, she rested her head comfortably onto her crossed arms.

Exhausted, but also more agitated than she'd felt for months, Callista stuffed the pillow back over her face and waited fruitlessly for sleep.

* * *

Aren stirred as the first faint glow of dawn cracked the sky.

He rolled over and stretched, blinking slowly awake in the colorless light that seeped through the fog-pearled window. Even through his grogginess, something seemed…off.

He yawned and propped himself up against his flattened pillow, drowsily trying to take stock. His legs were tangled in the rough sheets, his clothes lay in a heap where they'd fallen the night before…and he was alone.

Oh.

He gave a tired sigh and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, trying to stem the disappointment he felt welling up like a cold pool in his belly and berating himself for his own stupidity. What had he expected, truly? She'd never said she would stay, and Callista didn't seem the type to take a chance on what might only be a silly infatuation.

Still.

He wasn't a complete fool. And he'd always believed in saying what he meant. He'd been truthful when he told her he didn't expect her to follow him anywhere, but did she really have to sneak out like that? How little respect did she have for him?

The anger dulled the edge of the hurt, and so he held onto it. They had very far to travel today, and their warlock running out on him - them - didn't change that. The others would be waiting for him.

Pushing away the twisted blankets, he stood, shuddering at the chill stone underfoot. The water in the basin was fresh but cold, and he shaved and washed his face quickly before strapping on his armor. He murmured his morning prayers as he dressed, beseeching the Light for wisdom and forbearance and protection, and felt the familiar peace softening the edges of his agitation. He'd always liked prayer and the clarity it brought to his thoughts, even if it didn't often survive contact with the muddy chaos of the rest of his life. If he'd been born into a world less full of insistent peril, he thought sometimes that he might have joined a monastery. He suspected it would've been simpler.

The edge of the sun had almost cleared the grey horizon by the time he was ready to leave. He picked up the knapsack containing the few belongings he hadn't left with their baggage in the stables and rolled his shoulders beneath the comfortingly thick metal of his pauldrons.

He pushed open the door, and any lingering clarity vanished immediately.

Callista lounged in the hallway just outside, sitting on an overstuffed canvas pack with her back against the drab wood of the wainscoting. Most of the lanterns had burned out and not been relit, and the chains of runes on her robes glowed like embers in the shadows. A dagger hung from the belt at her waist. Altogether, she did not look at all like a women simply waiting for the next ship home.

"Wynda told me to dress for a fight," she said, glancing down at the fel enchantments on her sleeve with a dry grin. "I guess she was right, because there's a pair of Sentinels downstairs who look like they want to fight me right now."

"Er," Aren said, inadequately. Anger flared through him, swiftly quenched by confusion into a heavy core of muddled embarrassment and irritation. Was she just toying with him? That he would wake up alone and Callista would still be coming with them was not a possibility he had prepared himself for. Technically, he was still her commanding officer. He'd been more than half sure she'd leave this morning, but, if she hadn't, he'd been willing to risk the potential minor breach of protocol (she was not really part of the Dawn, after all) for the chance at something more meaningful. This, however...What exactly did you say to a woman who spent the night with you and then vanished before the clothes on the floor had time to wrinkle? Then turned up again at sunrise, prepared to, possibly, brave a forest full of demons for you?

"Sorry about this morning," she said, pulling up one side of her mouth sheepishly. "I needed time to pack."

Aren was not so naïve as to believe that that was the whole truth. Or even most of it. All the same, she didn't look entirely unrepentant, and it cooled his indignation slightly. She was still here, at least, and she wasn't pretending that nothing had happened. "Look, you can't just - I didn't think – what were you - ," he gave the sentence up as a botched job and squeezed his eyes shut briefly before starting again. "Okay. Alright. Just, alright. We can talk about this later." He hesitated, unable to completely suppress his irritation. "It's only…couldn't you at least wake me up next time?"

He thought she might have winced, but it could have just been a play of the hall's deep shadow across her face. Would it have killed her to look even a little bit flustered? It would've made Aren feel less like an idiot. He suspected he looked like an idiot. He suspected he might _be_ an idiot.

"Alright," she said finally.

He stared at her, hard, but her expression was so bland he couldn't make out if she meant anything by it. Light, why couldn't she ever just speak plainly? Shaking his head in surrender, he hefted his knapsack onto his shoulder. "Come on, the others are probably waiting."

* * *

It took three days of travel before the first signs of corruption scarred the forest around them. The trees grew tall and broad as ever, bark shaggy with age, but grey mold slimed the leaves underfoot and many of the largest trunks were dead and tumorous with orange mushrooms.

"This is a great shame," Vorthaal said, touching the bark of a particularly huge deadfall gently. "Some of these trees are older than I am."

"This glade was beautiful once," Luciel said. She'd been even more taciturn than usual since they'd reached the borders of the cursed forest, mouth pressing into a harder line with each ruined vale they passed. "My people paid a high price to destroy the arch-demon, but it will be many mortal lifetimes before this land is whole."

"Depressing," Ander muttered, too quietly for anyone but Callista to hear.

She shot him a silent grimace of agreement. They'd set off from Auberdine cheerfully enough (despite the ferocious hangovers sported by half their party), but the closer they got to Felwood the blacker the pall that seemed to settle over all of them. Darkshore was aptly named. A fitful drizzle had begun to fall the evening of their first day, and any thinning of the mist only revealed massive trees with drooping limbs and broken kaldorei ruins sad as eyeless faces.

At least the rain and the subdued atmosphere had made it easy to avoid a prolonged conversation with Aren. He'd tried to catch her alone once, the first time they made camp, but then the clouds had opened and she'd sidled away with the excuse of collecting firewood before it got too wet to burn. Transparent avoidance, but she didn't care. She knew Aren wanted to discuss what had happened that night at the inn, but Callista had no interest in that particular conversation. Not until she figured out what she meant to say, anyway. What, exactly, was the most politic way to tell the leader of your scouting expedition that you'd only slept with him because you'd wholly intended to desert at the time?

"So, how long until we find a demon?" Ander asked, glancing almost hopefully into the dying underbrush.

Callista shrugged, and adjusted her hood to stave off the irregular drip of rain through the leaves. "Probably not for a while. We'd be lucky to find a mad furbolg this close to Auberdine."

They were already walking several paces behind the rest of the party, but Ander still flicked his eyes dramatically from side to side before taking a confidential step closer and whispering, "I'll give you five coppers to summon a doomguard straight into the cooking fire."

Callista laughed softly. She sympathized. Meals had become such a dismal affair a little indiscriminate violence might improve them. Partly her own fault, she supposed, but that didn't mean she was enjoying it. "Only five? You know I'd need to _murder_ someone, right?"

"One more evening watching Luciel and Sir Aren sigh into their soup, and I'll pay you double to murder me," he muttered.

"Deal." She stuck out a hand, and Ander gave it a firm mocking shake.

"I can hear you two scheming back there!" Wynda's voice drifted back over the crunch of dead leaves and the creak of wooden wheels. Nothing in Felwood was fit to eat or drink, so they carried what they needed in a cart pulled by a hardy drafthorse. They'd all left their mounts at the last night elven outpost, and everyone but Vorthaal took turns driving.

"I do not scheme!" Ander called back in a lofty tone. "Though I occasionally negotiate hijinks."

"I schemed once!" Callista volunteered.

"Aye, I bet you did. Though I trust you'd know better than to encourage any idea of Ander's. Don't make me come back there!"

"You're not my real mom!" Ander howled.

Wynda's strident laughter made even the doleful patter of rain through the leaves seem lighter.

Vorthaal chuckled. "Ah, youthful exhuberance." He and Luciel strode on either side of the cart. The dranei's giant crystal warhammer remained strapped against his back, but his eyes never stopped roaming the decayed ferns and pitted brown trunks of the forest.

"Don't judge us all by Ander," Nathanial shouted from the front of their little caravan. "He's been eight years old since he was born."

Ander stuck out his tongue at his brother (there was no way he could see it around the bulk of the cart) and winked at Callista.

She grinned back. She'd never been close to her own sister (she'd been sent away for arcane schooling when she was ten, and they'd never developed much in common), but watching the Redbranches almost, maybe, stirred some wistfulness for what never was. There was something to be said for a companion who was blood-bound to put up with you.

"We'll stop here for the night," Aren said.

They'd reached a small glade, and when Callista looked up she could see the yellowing light of late afternoon between rents in the clouds. A crumbled stone wall lay just off the trail, surrounded by low hillocks thatched with brown grasses that might've marked the remains of even older ruins. Though it was nowhere near autumn, malformed leaves drifted down from the canopy in a slow fall of decay.

"Lets pitch the tents and start a fire, if we can manage one. It'll probably be our last for a while. Double watches, now that we're near Felwood. Wynda and Vorthaal, you take first. Luciel and Nathanial, you next, and I'll take last with Callista. Ander, you're off tonight."

Ander cheered.

Callista cringed inwardly, though her expression remained bland. She scraped a boot through a thick pile of crumbling leaves, looking for wood dry enough for kindling. So much for avoiding Aren. Manipulating the watch schedule was a rather low trick, for a paladin.

Her toe hit against something hard, dislodging a large chunk of matted leaves. She stooped down to pick up what she assumed was a long dead branch, but hissed and dropped it again once the leaves fell away.

Bones.

A long femur, picked clean of flesh but stained tea-colored by water seeping through dead leaves.

The misgiving that had been pooling beneath the surface of her thoughts for three days now (studiously ignored, because she'd made her choices, however impulsive, and looking back was always such a dangerous gamble), curdled suddenly into a hard knot of dread in her belly.

This was not a pleasant stroll in the forest. Especially not now, not in this company. Felwood wasn't a place Callista would lightly enter even alone. And alone, possibly, she'd have been allowed to pass without trouble (had been allowed once, what seemed like lifetimes ago but had been less than two years); the Shadow Council did not discourage mortals from travelling to Jaedenar, provided the correct kind of magic tainted their blood. There were still other dangers though. Mad wildlife and poisoned air and water and demons who served no masters but their own lust for violence. And with a party as drenched in the Holy Light as hers, there was no chance of passing unnoticed by the Council. They could only hope any watchers would find them too well-armed to be worth the effort of destroying.

She looked around at the seven of them, the slow cart burdened with supplies, and scowled. Highly doubtful.

Twisting Nether. She wasn't ready to bolt...quite...but perhaps it was time she started considering a contingency plan.

* * *

Hours later, Callista woke to a hand on her shoulder and Nathanial's low voice.

"It's your turn."

Callista groaned sleepily before sitting up in her bedroll and digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Did you see anything?"

Nathanial's face was a dark shadow against the tent opening. "No. It's raining again though."

"Of course it is." Now that he'd said it, she could hear the wet patter against the canvas. Feeling around in the dark for her cloak, she shrugged it on before crawling out into the night.

The fire had long ago gone out, though the smell of woodsmoke lingered. Fat drops of rain slid down through the forest canopy to burst against Callista's covered head and shoulders, adding a staccato counterpoint to the endless sigh of wind through the leaves.

It was very very dark. Nathanial picked his way over to the tent he shared with Ander as Callista strained her eyes against the blackness, stepping carefully towards the ruined wall that bordered their campsite and laying a hand on top of the largest fallen stone.

Nothing to see but shadows and the black trunks of trees, smeared into near invisibility by falling rain.

The stone was drenched. Wrinkling her nose, she shut one eye to preserve her night vision and ignited her palm with a hot yellow flame, scouring the top of the stone until all the water that pooled in its worn surface had hissed away.

The sudden heat boiled the water but barely warmed the rock. She hoisted herself onto it quickly, before the rain could wet it again, and settled herself cross-legged. This watch was likely to be unpleasant for a number of reasons. No need to marinate her rear as well.

Her felhunter, drawn by the flare of magic, loped over from the stand of trees she'd ordered it to lay in and placed its horned paws on the edge of the stone, butting hopefully at her hand.

She scratched the coarse fur under its jaw, listening carefully for the sound of anything approaching through the undergrowth. Not that she was worried about demons. Jhormug would sense them long before she did. Her ear was cocked in the direction of the tents.

A pungent smell pricked her nose, even over the earthy scent of wet loam, and she eyed her minion skeptically. Something like old blood mixed with damp fur and an acrid seared odor. "One day, I'm going to have to give you a bath. You're going to hate it."

Jhormug took no notice, merely twisting his head to gnaw at the rock where she'd burned it.

It wasn't long before the crackle of snapped twigs rose over the rain sounds. Jhormug stopped chewing at the stone and dropped to all fours, growling a warning.

The footsteps hesitated a moment before resuming. Callista half-turned back toward camp as Aren touched her lightly on the arm.

"Hey," he said. He didn't remove his hand, gently squeezing the back of her elbow.

"Hey," Callista replied. She didn't push his hand away but she stiffened a little in uncertainty, not sure, for once, exactly what she meant to say and annoyed that he should unbalance her at all that way. Twisting Nether, so she'd slept with him. Once. She'd slept with plenty of people once. Some of them she'd even been almost fond of, after a fashion. It didn't _mean_ anything.

Jhormug growled again more loudly, sensing her agitation.

"Oh, go catch an imp," she muttered, glad for the interruption and the excuse to twitch away.

Aren rested his forearms against her stone, leaning over them to watch the felhunter warily. "I don't think your - Jhormug?" he corrected hesitantly. "Likes me."

Callista laughed. "He doesn't really like anything I won't let him eat. Including me, I think."

Though, like most demons, the felhunter bore an especial hatred for Light-wielders. Yet another reason this liaison was a bad idea.

She could hear the wry smile in his tone. "Ah. Well, as long as I'm in good company, then."

She quirked a lip, but made no reply. After a moment she looked away, watching the pillared shadows of the trees and listening to the mournful tapping of rain against the leaves.

Fabric rasped against rock, Aren shifting awkwardly. "Could you come down here? So we can...talk? Please?"

Knowing he couldn't see her, Callista made a face. She did not want to talk. What she wanted was - not for this never to have happened, exactly, not even for it never to happen again - but for the whole thing to have been different from the start. Somehow. This wasn't how she'd intended this to end up. Shirking the conversation could only make it worse, though.

She slid down from the rock, leaving one hand on it for balance, and turned to face him. "Aren. What do you want me to say?"

His voice, when he spoke, was low and earnest. "Say you'll marry me."

Her jaw dropped so hard she swore she heard the joint click, and she recoiled with an aggravated hiss. "What in the Twisting Nether and Great Dark Beyond is the matter with - "

He was laughing. So hard he pressed his palm against his mouth to muffle himself and not wake the others, shoulders shaking.

"Very funny," Callista said dryly, still a little annoyed. Mostly just relieved, though. Nether, what a nightmare.

"That's for leaving without waking me up." His tone was light, but with an undercurrent of sincerity. He sighed, suddenly serious, and hesitated a long moment before speaking again. "You've been avoiding me for days. Do you really regret what we did that much?"

He sounded...hurt. She winced. "Is that what you think?"

"Callista. You've barely looked me in the eye since Auberdine. What did you mean for me to think?"

Truthfully, she hadn't really considered that at all. She'd been so concerned he'd read too much into her actions - sleeping with him, and then staying on with the group, despite her vehement assertions that she wouldn't - that it hadn't occurred to her that she'd pushed his impressions so far in the other direction. She was so unused to taking people at their word. He'd never tried to edge her into any kind of commitment, but she'd assumed he meant to anyway. Maybe Wynda was right. Perhaps she really had spent too much time with demons, if she couldn't stop herself from applying liars' standards to even honorable people.

"Sorry," she said. "This isn't...how this usually goes."

"What, the part where you stay?"

_The part where I believe anything that you say._ "Something like that."

"Look," he said. "I'm not asking for promises. I just want to know if you think what happened was a mistake." He paused, and she could hear in his voice, more than see, the crooked smile that stole across his face. "Because I don't. In case you weren't sure."

Callista exhaled, half laugh, half sigh. She supposed whether this was a mistake depended entirely on your definition of the word; whether you leaned more toward the "accidental" or the "this will end poorly" side of the semantic fence. But either way, what was done was done, and sometimes it was best to let the future keep its own problems. And some things were better off unsaid.

Evading the question, she reached out a hand instead, laying it on his bicep and taking a step closer, tilting her head up invitingly.

To Aren's credit, he was much better at interpreting her touches than he often was her words. He kissed her, one hand rising to cup her jaw and the other settling against the small of her back, pulling her close against him. He smelled like woodsmoke, and when she parted her lips, catching his bottom one between them, he tasted like salt and rainwater.

She slipped a hand beneath the oiled fabric of his hood, tugging gently at the short hair at the nape of his neck and enjoying his sudden intake of breath, but after a moment she paused. "This is still a terrible idea," she murmured, close enough to feel his quickened breath against her mouth.

"I know," he said.

She laughed, softly but not unkindly. And that was the trouble, really. If he hadn't known this was wrong - he was her commanding officer, technically, and even if he hadn't been, a paladin ought to have found her casual fel magic repellant anyway - she wouldn't have found this half so interesting.

With a small mental shrug - at least she'd tried, which was more than she'd wanted to do - she pressed her mouth back to his. One hand dipped to his belt, pushing up the soft fabric of his shirt until she could lay her rain-chilled fingers against the hot skin beneath.

He gasped, burying his face against her neck and sliding a hand over hers, warming her fingers between his palm and the heat of his belly.

"I thought you were going to leave," he said. He'd grown the beginnings of a beard since they'd left Auberdine, and his cheek rasped pleasantly against her neck as he spoke.

"I _was_ going to leave," she said, not paying particular attention to her words but breathing deliberately against his ear.

She bit gently at it and his grip tightened as he kissed her neck. "Why didn't you?"

Callista didn't care much for this line of questioning. She grasped the hand he'd been holding against hers lightly by the wrist and pushed his palm against her breast. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." He paused, drawing back from her slightly so he could look her in the eyes. His hood had slipped, and rain smoothed chunks of his sleep-mussed hair to his forehead and beaded the stubble of his new beard, the wet glimmer visible even in the dark.

Callista hesitated, unsure whether to lie, or to tell the truth - or even what would be which, this time. Too many reasons, twisted and blended together like drops of dye in water, and no one of them enough. She'd still meant to leave, after she crept out of his room that night. But then there'd been Wynda, that frustrating, too-honest conversation when she'd tried to say the cruel, useful thing, and couldn't…

She'd have found out what happened to them all, one way or another. Even if - especially if - they never came back from Kalimdor. Despite their petty rivalries, the warlocks of Stormwind talked, and one day, through the strange, illicit, half-reliable channels that brought word from Orgrimmar and Jaedenar, from Shattrath City and the Black Citadel, she'd have heard it whispered in the back of The Slaughtered Lamb. An Argent Dawn company, vanished in Felwood, and did you hear what truly became of them?

She hadn't liked the thought, and hadn't been able to banish it.

She smiled coyly at him. "Come here and I'll show you." It wasn't more than half a lie - the sex had helped. It had been an embarrassingly long time, after all. First that dreadsteed debacle; then that unsettling, rather unwisely drunk, encounter with Nerothos on the dock (she and Tun had stayed in Booty Bay for another week afterward, but he'd upset her equanimity too much for her to truly enjoy herself); then she'd been so occupied yanking imps out of nobles' bathhouses...

Aren laughed, and kissed her, slowly. This time, he didn't speak again for some while.

* * *

A/N: First of all, giant piles of thanks to anyone who's still reading this! Sorry for the insane hiatus, no excuse really but a dire combination of writer's block and real life distraction. Thanks so much to anyone who reviewed or PMed me about this story in the last couple years (or ever really), you guys rock! Future chapters should be much more timely, since I have large chunks already written.

Just as an aside, some of you may have noticed that I've upped the rating of this story to M. I don't expect the sexuality to get any more explicit than in this chapter, but starting in the next chapter there's going to be quite a bit of violence and general awfulness, and I thought the combo warranted the change. Felwood is a terrible place full of terrible people doing terrible things...


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